rvey D. "I go to
my comrades barehanded." He adjusted the knot of crimson at his white
throat. "But they will not be barehanded long, remember that!"

Nathan Marwick started the car along the driveway. Merle was seen to
order a halt.

"Of course, for a time, at least, I shall keep the New York apartment.
My address will be the same."

The car went on.

"Did that father know his own flesh and blood--I ask you?" demanded
Sharon.

"Dear me, dear me!" sighed Harvey D.

"Poor young thing!" said Gideon.

Merle, on his way to the train, thought of his hat. He had not been able
to feel confidence in that hat. There was a trimness about it, an
assertive glamour, an air of success, that should not stamp one of the
oppressed. He had gone to the purchase of it with vague notions that a
labouring man, at least while actually labouring, wears a square cap of
paper which he has made himself. So he was crowned in all cartoons. But,
of course, this paper thing would not do for street wear, and the hat he
now wore was the least wealth-suggesting he had been able to find. He
now decided that a cap would be better. He seemed to remember that the
toiling masses wore a lot of caps.

CHAPTER XVIII

A week later one of the New York evening papers printed an inspiring
view of Merle Dalton Whipple in what was said to be the rough garb of
the workingman. He stanchly fronted the world in a corduroy suit and
high-laced boots, a handkerchief knotted at his throat above a flannel
shirt, and a somewhat proletarian cap set upon his well-posed head. The
caption ran: "Young Millionaire Socialist Leaves Life of Luxury to be
Simple Toiler."

A copy of this enterprising sheet, addressed in an unknown hand, arrived
at the Whipple New Place, to further distress the bereft family. Only
Sharon Whipple was not distressed. He remarked that the toiler was not
so simple as some people might think, and he urged that an inquiry be
set on foot to discover the precise nature of the toil now being engaged
in by this recruit to the ranks of labour. He added that he himself
would be glad to pay ninety dollars a month and board to any toiler
worth his salt, because Juliana was now his only reliable helper, and it
did seem as if she would never learn to run a tractor, she having no
gift for machinery. If Merle Whipple was bent on toil, why should he not
come to the Home Farm, where plenty of it could be had for the asking?

Both Harvey D. and Gideon r