He wormed his way through the currant bushes to the garden path and disappeared toward the house, while Gordon, dodging the clothes lines strung near the rear fence, went along the brick walk and gained the side porch by the simple expedient of vaulting the railing. The Merrick house was new—most of the residences on that end of Troutman Street were—and was mildly pretentious. Mr. Merrick was a lawyer and comfortably well-to-do. The family had lived in Clearfield for six generations and had given its name to one of the principal streets in the downtown business part of the city. I refer to Clearfield as a city, and it really was, but it was not a very large city. The latest census credited it with something over 17,000 inhabitants. Like many New England cities of its kind, it owed its growth and prosperity to factories of various sorts. Mill River, which entered the bay two miles distant, flowed along the edge of the town and provided water-power for a number of large manufacturing plants, knitting mills, a sewing machine factory, a silverware factory and several others. The knitting mills were largely owned by Mr. Brent, the Honorable Jonathan Brent, as the Clearfield _Reporter_ usually referred to him, and while Gordon had spoken of Mr. Brent “owning the town,” he had, of course, exaggerated, but still had not been very far wide of the mark. Mr. Brent was Clearfield’s richest and its leading citizen. Besides the knitting mills he controlled two banks and the street railway and lighting service and had a finger—usually two or three fingers—in many other enterprises. The Brent residence, standing imposingly in a whole block of land, was visible, further along Troutman Street, from the Merricks’ porch. In this, the more recently developed part of the town, the wide streets were lined with maples as yet too young to afford much shade, but a giant elm tree, which had been old long before Clearfield even thought of growing away from the river, stood just inside the Merricks’ front gate and effectively screened the house from the hot sunlight. Gordon contented himself with putting his head inside the screen door and announcing in a loud voice: “Mother, I’m going downtown. Is there anything you want?” Mrs. Merrick’s voice floated down from upstairs in reply: “No, dear; but please try to be on time for dinner. You know your father dislikes——” But Gordon didn’t hear the rest of it. He didn’t need to. He knew what his father disliked. His father disliked having him late for his meals, disliked his going out in the evenings, disliked—oh, so many things! Gordon sighed as he mounted his wheel. Life was really extremely difficult at times!