The Wrong Twin

by Harry Leon Wilson

CHAPTER IV

In the Penniman home it was not merely Sunday morning; it was Sabbath morning. Throughout the house a subdued bustling, decorous and solemn; a hushed, religious hurry of preparation for church. In the bathroom Judge Penniman shaved his marbled countenance with tender solicitude, fitting himself to adorn a sanctuary. In other rooms Mrs. Penniman and Winona arrayed themselves in choice raiment for behoof of the godly; in each were hurried steppings, as from closet to mirror; shrill whisperings of silken drapery as it fell into place. In the parlour the Merle twin sat reading an instructive book. With unfailing rectitude he had been the first to don Sabbath garments, and now lacked merely his shoes, which were being burnished by his brother in the more informal atmosphere of the woodshed, to which the Sabbath strain of preparation did not penetrate.

It was the Wilbur twin's weekly task to do the shoes of himself and brother and those of the judge. No one could have told precisely why the task fell to him, and he had never thought to question. The thing simply was. Probably Winona, asked to wrestle with the problem, would have urged that Merle was always the first one dressed, and should not be expected to submit his Sunday suit to the hazards of this toil. She would have added, perhaps, that anyway it was more suitable work for Wilbur, the latter being of a rougher spiritual texture. Also, Merle could be trusted to behave himself in the Penniman parlour, not touching the many bibelots there displayed, or disarranging the furniture, while the Wilbur twin would not only touch and disarrange, but pry into and handle and climb and altogether demoralize. In all the parlour there was but one object for which he had a seemly respect—the vast painting of a recumbent lion behind bars. It was not an ordinary picture, such as may be seen in galleries, for the bars guarding the fierce beast were real bars set into the frame, a splendid conceit that the Wilbur twin never tired of regarding. If you were alone in the sacred room you could go right up to the frame and feel the actual bars and put your hand thrillingly through them to touch the painted king of the jungle. But the Merle twin could sit alone in the presence of this prized art treasure and never think of touching it. He would sit quietly and read his instructive book and not occasion the absent Winona any anxiety. Wherefore the Wilbur twin each Sabbath morning in the woodshed polished three pairs of shoes, and not uncheerfully. He would, in truth, much rather be there at his task than compelled to sit in the parlour with his brother present to tell if he put inquiring fingers into the lion's cage.

He had finished the shoes of his brother and himself, not taking too much pains about the heels, and now laboured at the more considerable footgear of the judge. The judge's shoes were not only broad, but of a surface abounding in hills and valleys. As Dave Cowan said, the judge's feet were lumpy. But the Wilbur twin was conscientious here, and the judge's heels would be as resplendent as the undulating toes. The task had been appreciably delayed by Frank, the dog, who, with a quaint relish for shoe blacking, had licked a superb polish from one shoe while the other was under treatment. His new owner did not rebuke him. He conceived that Frank had intelligently wished to aid in the work, and applauded him even while securing the shined shoes from his further assistance.

But one pagan marred this chastened Sabbath harmony of preparation. In the little house Dave Cowan lolled lordly in a disordered bed, smoked his calabash pipe beside a disordered breakfast tray, fetched him by the Wilbur twin, and luxuriated in the merely Sunday—and not Sabbath—edition of a city paper shrieking with black headlines and spectacular with coloured pictures; a pleasing record of crimes and disasters and secrets of the boudoir, the festal diversions of the opulent, the minor secrets of astronomy, woman's attire, baseball, high art, and facial creams. As a high priest of the most liberal of all arts, Dave scanned the noisy pages with a cynical and professional eye, knowing that none of the stuff had acquired any dignity or power to coerce human belief until mere typesetters like himself had crystallized it. Not for Dave Cowan was the printed word of sacred authority. He had set up too much copy. But he was pleased, nevertheless, thus to while and doze away a beautiful Sabbath morning that other people made rather a trial of.

Having finished the last of the judge's shoes, the Wilbur twin took them and the shoes of Merle to their owners, then hastened with his own to the little house where he must dress in his own Sunday clothes, wash his hands with due care—they would be doubtingly inspected by Winona—and put soap on his hair to make it lie down. Merle's hair would lie politely as combed, but his own hair owned no master but soap. Lacking this, it stood out and up in wicked disorder—like the hair of a rowdy, Winona said.

The rebellious stuff was at last plastered deceitfully to his skull as if a mere brush had smoothed it, and with a final survey, to assure himself that he had forgotten none of those niceties of the toilet that Winona would insist upon, he took his new straw hat and went again to the Penniman house. For the moment he was in flawless order, as neat, as compactly and accurately accoutred as the Merle twin, to whom this effect came without effort. But it would be so only for a few fleeting moments. He mournfully knew this, and so did Winona. Within five blocks from home and still five blocks from the edifice of worship, while Merle appeared as one born to Sunday clothes and shined shoes and a new hat, the Wilbur twin would be one to whom Sabbath finery was exotic and unwelcome. The flawless lustre of his shoes would be dulled, even though he walked sedately the safe sidewalk; his broad collar and blue polka-dotted cravat would be awry, one stocking would be down, his jacket yawning, all his magnificence seeming unconquerably alien. Winona did him the justice to recognize that this disarray was due to no wilfulness of its victim. He was helpless against a malign current of his being.

He held himself stiff in the parlour until the Pennimans came rustling down the stairway. He could exult in a long look at the benignant lion back of real bars, but, of course, he could not now reach up to touch the bars. It would do something to his clothes, even if the watchful and upright Merle had not been there to report a transgression of the rules. Merle also stood waiting, his hat nicely in one hand.

The judge descended the stairs, monumental in black frock coat, gray trousers, and the lately polished shoes that were like shining relief maps of a hill country. He carried a lustrous silk hat, which he now paused to make more lustrous, his fingers clutching a sleeve of his coat and pulling it down to make a brush. The hat was the only item of the judge's regal attire of which the Wilbur twin was honestly envious—it was so beautiful, so splendid, so remote. He had never even dared to touch it. He could have been left alone in the room with it, and still would have surveyed it in all respect from a proper distance.