"I'm much obliged for my pants and this cake and pie," said the boy, so the woman said, "Yes, yes," and hugged him briefly as he ate.
Not until he had consumed the last morsel of these provisions and eke a bumper of milk did the woman lead him back to that shaded porch where he had lately been put to the torture. But now he was another being, clad not only as became a man among men but inwardly fortified by food. If stepmothers were like this he wished his own father would find one. The girl with her talk about cruelty--he still admired her, but she must be an awful liar. He faced the tormenting group on the porch with almost faultless self-possession. He knew they could not hurt him.
"Well, well, well!" roared Sharon Whipple, meaning again to be humorous. But the restored Wilbur eyed him coldly, with just a faint curiosity that withered the humorist in him. "Well, well!" he repeated, but in dry, businesslike tones, as if he had not meant to be funny in the first place.
"I guess we'll have to be going now," said the Wilbur twin. "And we must leave all that money. It wouldn't be honest to take it now."
The Merle twin at this looked across at him with marked disfavour.
"Take it, of course!" said Gideon Whipple.
"He's earned it fairly," said Juliana. She turned to Merle. "Give it to him," she directed.
This was not as Merle would have wished. If the money had been earned he was still willing to take care of it, wasn't he?
"A beggarly pittance for what he did," said Gideon Whipple, warmly.
"Wouldn't do it myself for twice the amount, whatever it is," said Sharon.
Very slowly, under the Whipple regard, the Merle twin poured the price of his brother's shame into his brother's cupped hands. The brother felt religious at this moment. He remembered seriously those things they told you in Sunday-school--about a power above that watches over us and makes all come right. There must be something in that talk.
The fiscal transaction was completed. The twins looked up to become aware that their late confederate surveyed them from the doorway. Her eyes hinted of a recent stormy past, but once more she was decorously apparelled.
"Your little guests are leaving," said the stepmother. "You must bid them good-bye."