And the girl did even so, holding up to him riches beyond the dreams of avarice.  There was bitterness in the eyes of the Wilbur twin even as they gloated on the bribe.  The ordeal would be fearful.  He was to become a thing—­not a girl and still not a boy—­a thing somehow shameful.  At last the alternative came to him.

“You change with her,” he said, brightening.  “My pants got a tear here on the side, and my waist ain’t so clean as yours.”

“Now don’t begin that!” said his brother, firmly.  “We don’t want a lot of silly arguments about it, do we?  Look at all the money we’ll have!”

“Your clothes are the best,” said the girl.  “I must be filthy and ragged.  Oh, please hurry!” Then to Merle:  “Do unbutton my waist.  Start it at the top and I can finish.”

Gingerly he undid the earliest buttons on that narrow back of checked gingham, and swiftly the girl completed the process to her waist.  Then the waist was off her meagre shoulders and she stepped from the hated garment.  The Wilbur twin was aghast at her downright methods.  He had a feeling that she should have retired for this change.  How was he to know that an emergency had lifted her above prejudices sacred to the meaner souled?  But now he raised a new objection, for beneath her gown the girl had been still abundantly and intricately clad, girded, harnessed.

“I can’t ever put on all those other things,” he declared, indicating the elaborate underdressing.

“Very well, I’ll keep ’em on under the pants and waist till I get to the great city,” said the girl, obligingly.  “But why don’t you hurry?”

She tossed him the discarded dress.  He was seized with fresh panic as he took the thing.

“I don’t like to,” he said, sullenly.

“Look at all the money we’ll have!” urged the brother.

“Here,” said the girl, beguilingly, “when you’ve done it I’ll give you two long sucks of my lemon candy.”

She took the enticing combination from Merle and held it fair before his yearning eyes; the last rite of a monstrous seduction was achieved.  The victim wavered and was lost.  He took the dress.

“Whistle if any one comes,” he said, and withdrew behind the headstone of the late Jonas Whipple.  He—­of the modest sex—­would not disrobe in public.  At least it was part modesty; in part the circumstance that his visible garments were precisely all he wore.  He would not reveal to this child of wealth that the Cowans had not the habit of multifarious underwear.  Over the headstone presently came the knee pants, the faded calico waist with bone buttons.  The avid buyer seized and apparelled herself in them with a deft facility.  The Merle twin was amazed that she should so soon look so much like a boy.  From behind the headstone came the now ambiguous and epicene figure of the Wilbur twin, contorted to hold together the back of his waist.

“I can’t button it,” he said in deepest gloom.