Dave needn't buy shoes and hats for Merle Whipple any more than he need buy them for any other Whipple, but Dave had stubbornly squandered his own money.

His boy wasn't going up to the big house like a ragamuffin.
It came to the Wilbur twin that these days until Saturday were like the days intervening in a house of death until the funeral.

He became increasingly shy and uncomfortable.

It seemed to him that his brother had passed on, as they said, his mortal remains to be disposed of on Saturday at three o'clock.

Having led a good life he would go to heaven, where he would have a pony and a thousand knives if he wanted them.