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.