uld know he was going and go, stirred by
some vagrant longing for a strange city--and it was so easy to go. He
was unencumbered with belongings. He had no troublesome packing to do,
and took not even the smallest of bags in his farings forth. Unlike the
twins, Dave had no Sunday clothes. What clothes he had he wore, very
sensibly, it seemed to him. He had but to go on and on, equipped with
his union card and his printer's steel rule, the sole machinery of his
trade, and where he would linger he was welcome, for as long as he chose
and at a wage ample for his few needs, to embalm the doings of a queer
world in type. Little wonder he should always obey the wander-bidding.

They passed a place where the head of the clan, having dined, had been
overtaken with lethargy and in a hammock on his porch was asleep in a
public and noisy manner.

"Small-town stuff!" murmured Dave, amiably contemptuous.

The Wilbur twin could never understand why his father called Newbern a
small town. They came to the end of Fair Street, where the white houses
dwindled into open country. The road led away from the river and climbed
the gentle slope of West Hill. The Wilbur twin had climbed that slope
the day before under auspices that he now recalled with disgust. Beyond,
at the top of the hill, its chimneys lifted above the trees and its red
walls showing warmly through the cool green of its shading foliage, was
the Whipple New Place. To the left, across the western end of the little
town and capping another hill, was the Whipple Old Place, where dwelt
Sharon Whipple and his daughter, Juliana. The walls of the Whipple Old
Place were more weathered, of a duller red. The two places looked down
upon the town quite as castles of old looked down upon their
feudatories.

"I was right inside that house yesterday," said the Wilbur twin,
pointing to the Whipple New Place and boasting a little--he would not
have to reveal the dreadful details of his entry. "Right inside of it,"
he added to make sure that his father would get all his importance. But
the father seemed not enough impressed.

"You'll probably go into better houses than that some day," he merely
said, and added: "You learn a good trade like mine and you can always go
anywhere; always make your good money and be more independent than
Whipples or even kings in their palaces. Remember that, Sputterboy."

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

His father never addressed the Merle twin by any but his right