The Wrong Twin | Page 8

He laughed with scorn.
"Yes, you are!" he gibed. "Look at your hair! I guess Ben Blunt didn't
have long girl's hair, did he--stringy old red hair?"
Her hands flew to her pigtail.
"My hair is not red," she told him. "It's just a decided blonde." Then she
faltered, knowing full well that Ben Blunt's hair was not worn in a braid.
"Of course I'm going to cut it off," she said. "Haven't you boys got a
knife?"
They had a knife. It was Wilbur's, but Merle quite naturally took it
from him and assumed charge of the ensuing operation. Wilbur Cowan
had to stand by with no place to put his hands--a mere onlooker. Yet it
was his practical mind that devised the method at last adopted, for the
early efforts of his brother to sever the braid evoked squeals of pain
from the patient. At Wilbur's suggestion she was backed up to the fence
and the braid brought against a board, where it could be severed strand
by strand. It was not neatly done, but it seemed to suffice. When the
cap was once more adjusted, rather far back on the shorn head, even the
cynical Wilbur had to concede that the effect was not bad. The severed
braid, a bow of yellow ribbon at the end, now engaged the notice of its

late owner.
"The officers of the law might trace me by it," she said, "so we must
foil them."
"Tie a stone to it and sink it in the river," urged Wilbur.
"Hide it in those bushes," suggested Merle.
But the girl was inspired by her surroundings.
"Bury it!" she ordered.
The simple interment was performed. With the knife a shallow grave
was opened close to the stone whereon old Jonas Whipple taunted the
living that they were but mortal, and in it they laid the pigtail to its last
rest, patting the earth above it and replacing the turf against possible
ghouls.
Again the girl swaggered broadly before them, swinging her shoulders,
flaunting her emancipated legs in a stride she considered masculine.
Then she halted, hands in pockets, rocked easily upon heel and toe, and
spat expertly between her teeth. For the first time she impressed the
Wilbur twin, extorting his reluctant admiration. He had never been able
to spit between his teeth. Still, there must be things she couldn't do.
"You got to smoke and chew and curse," he warned her.
"I won't, either! It says Ben Blunt was a sturdy lad of good habits.
Besides, I could smoke if I wanted to. I already have. I smoked Harvey
D.'s pipe."
"Who's Harvey D.?"
"My father. I smoked his pipe repeatedly."
"Repeatedly?"
"Well, I smoked it twice. That's repeatedly, ain't it? I'd have done it

more repeatedly, but Miss Murtree sneaked in and made a scene."
"Did you swallow the smoke through your nose?"
"I--I guess so. It tasted way down on my insides."
Plainly there was something to the girl after all. The Wilbur twin here
extracted from the dress pocket, to which he had transferred his few
belongings, the half of something known to Newbern as a pennygrab. It
was a slender roll of quite inferior dark tobacco, and the original
purchaser had probably discarded it gladly. The present owner
displayed it to the girl.
"I'll give you a part of this, and we'll light up."
"Well, I don't know. It says Ben Blunt was a sturdy lad of good----"
"I bet you never did smoke repeatedly!"
Her manhood was challenged.
"I'll show you!" she retorted, grim about the lips.
With his knife he cut the evil thing in fair halves. The girl received her
portion with calmness, if not with gratitude, and lighted it from the
match he gallantly held for her. And so they smoked. The Merle twin
never smoked for two famous Puritan reasons--it was wrong for boys to
smoke and it made him sick. He eyed the present saturnalia with strong
disapproval. The admiration of the Wilbur twin--now forgetting his
ignominy--was frankly worded. Plainly she was no common girl.
"I bet you'll be all right in the big city," he said.
"Of course I will," said the girl.
She spat between her teeth with a fine artistry. In truth she was spitting
rather often, and had more than once seemed to strangle, but she held
her weed jauntily between the first and second fingers and contrived an
air of relish for it.

"Anyway," she went on, "it'll be better than here where I suffered so
terribly with everybody making the vilest scenes about any little thing
that happened. After they find it's too late they'll begin to wish they'd
acted kinder. But I won't ever come back, not if they beg me to with
tears streaming down their faces, after