Re-Creations (10 page)

She hurried into the kitchen and pulled the griddle forward over the fire, opened the drafts, and began to get the table in order for an early lunch. She glanced at the clock. It was half past eleven. She would have everything ready the minute he came down. She could still hear him stirring around. He had come down to the bathroom, and the sound of his razor strop whirred faintly. Well, that was a good sign. He was going to fix up a little before coming down. She put the last touches to her table, set the plates to warm, put on the syrup, and made the coffee. Then she took a broom and went back to the front room to wait until he came down.

Oh, that front room! It seemed drearier than ever as she attempted to make a little path in the wilderness.

She was trying to drag a big packing box out into the hall when Carey finally came down, looking wholly a gentleman except for a deep scowl on his brow. He came at once to her assistance, somewhat gruffly, but quite efficiently.

“What on earth are you trying to do, Nell?” he asked. “Don’t you know that’s too heavy for a girl to move? I told you. I’d help. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

Cornelia, feeling a strange excitement upon her, looked up brightly and tried to ignore the fact that he ought to have come down several hours before.

“Well, there’s so much to be done,” she said. “I certainly am glad to see you, though. But suppose we have lunch first. I’m hungry as a bear, and see, it’s five minutes to twelve. Can you eat now?”

“Oh, anytime!” he said indifferently. “What is it you want done, anyway? This room’s a mess. Some dump, the whole house! It makes me disgusted.”

He stood with his hands in his pockets, surveying the desolate scene and voicing Cornelia’s own thought of a few moments before. But it was Cornelia’s forte to rise to an occasion when everyone else was disheartened. She put on a cheery smile.

“Just you wait, brother, till I get through. I’ve plans for that room, and it won’t be so bad when it gets cleaned and fixed a little. Suppose you take those boxes down to the cellar, and those pictures and tubs, and the old trunk and chest out to the shed room beyond the kitchen, while I scramble some eggs and settle the coffee. Everything else is ready. Then after lunch we’ll get to work. I shall need your help to turn the piano around and open those boxes of books. Why do you suppose they put the bookcase face against the wall, with the piano in front of it? Seems to me that was dumb.”

“All movers are dumb!” declared Carey with a sweep of his arm, as if he would include the whole world. But he went to work vigorously and carried out the things with a whirl, and Cornelia perceived she must rush to have a plate of cakes before he was done with his assigned task.

“Aw, gee! You saved me some cakes!” he said with a grin of delight when they sat down at the table. “I oughta’ve got up for breakfast. But I was too tired. We took a joy ride last night down to Baltimore. I saw your poetry. It was great. Who wrote it? You of course.”

“We wanted you to be sure to get up, but of course you must have been sleepy riding all that way in the wind. It must have been great, though. It was a full moon last night, wasn’t it?” said his sister, ignoring the horror that the thought of the “joy ride” gave her.

“It sure was,” said the boy, brightening at the memory. “The fellas put ether in the gas, and she certainly did hum. We just went whizzing. It was a jim-dandy car, twelve-cylinder, some chariot! B’longs to a fella named Brand Barlock. He’s a prince, that boy is! Has thousands of dollars to spend as he pleases; and you’d never know he had a cent, he’s so big-hearted. Love him like a brother. Why, he’d let me take that car anywhere, and not mind; and it cost some money, that car did, this year’s racing model! Gee, but she’s a winner. Goes like a streak of greased lightning.”

Cornelia suppressed her apprehension over the possibilities of accident both physical and financial, and bloomed with interest. Of what use would it be to reprove her brother for taking such chances? It would only make him angry and turn him against her. She would see whether she could win him back to the old friendship, and then there might come a time when her advice would reach him. At present it would be useless.

“It must be great to have a fine car,” she said eagerly. “I love to ride. There were two or three girls at college who had cars and used to take us out sometimes, but of course that didn’t happen very often.”

“I’ll borrow Brand’s car and take you sometime,” he said eagerly. “He wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, Carey! No, you mustn’t do that!” she cried in alarm. “At least”—as she saw his frown of displeasure—“not till I know him, you know. I shouldn’t at all like to ride in a car whose owner I didn’t know. You must bring him here when we get all fixed up, and I’ll meet him. Then perhaps he’ll ask me to go along, too, sometime, although I’m not sure I’d like to go like a streak of lightning. Still, I’ve never tried it, and you know I never used to be afraid of things.”

“Sure, you’re all right, Nell. But I’d never bring Brand to this dump! He’s a rich man’s son, I tell you, and lives in a swell neighborhood.”

“Doesn’t he know where you live?”

Carey shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, yes, he drives around and honks the horn for me and brings me home again, but I wouldn’t ask him in—”

“Wait, I say, till we get it fixed up. You know, I’m an interior decorator! Oh, I wish there was just a fireplace! It makes such a cozy, cheerful place.”

“I could build one if I had the stuff,” declared Carey, interested. “What kind do you want? But then, everything costs so darned much. If I only had a job!”

“Oh, you’ll get a job, of course,” said his sister sympathetically, tying to reconcile his troubled look with what the children had said about his indifference toward work. “Where did you work last?”

The color rolled in a slow, dull wave over Carey’s restless young face, and a look of sullen hopelessness came into his handsome eyes.

“Oh, I haven’t had anything regular since I left school. I—you see—that is—oh, hang it all! I can’t get anything worthwhile. I’ve been doing some tinkering down at the garage. I could work steady there, but Dad makes it so hot for me when I do that I have to do it on the sly. He says it’s just a lazy job, hanging round with the fellas getting rides. He don’t know anything about it. It’s real man’s work, I tell you, hard work at that; and I’m learning all about machinery. Why, Nell, there isn’t a fella at the garage can tell as quick as I can what’s the matter with a car. Bob sends for me to find out after he’s worked half a day, and I can tell right off the bat when I hear the engine go what’s wrong.”

Cornelia watched his eyes sparkle as he talked and perceived that when he spoke of machinery he was in his element. He loved it. He loved it as she loved the idea of her chosen profession.

That being the case, he ought to be encouraged.

“Why, I should think it was a good thing to stick at it while you are looking around for something better,” she said slowly, wondering whether her father would blame her for going against his advice. “I should think maybe it will prepare you for something else in the line of machinery. What is there big and really worthwhile that you’d like to get into if you could? Of course, you wouldn’t want to be just a mender of cars all your life.”

His face took on a firm, manly look, and his eyes grew alert and earnest.

“Of course not!” he said crisply. “Father thinks I would, and I can’t make him see it any other way. He’s just plain disappointed in me, that’s all.” The young man’s tone took on a bitter tinge. “But I know it will be a step to something. Why, there’s all sorts of big companies now that make and sell machines, and if you understand all about machinery, you stand a better chance for getting in to be business manager someday. There’s tanks and oil wells and tractors and a lot of things. Of course I couldn’t jump into a thing like that at the start. Dad thinks I could. He thinks if I had any pep at all I could just walk up to the president of some big company and say, ‘Here I am; take me,’ and he’d do it, just like that. But—for one thing, look at me! Do I look like a businessman?” He stood back and lifted his arms with a dramatic gesture, pointing toward his shabby clothing.

“And then another thing, I’ve got to get experience first. If I only had a pull somewhere, but—”

“I’ll talk to Father,” said Cornelia soothingly. She looked at him thoughtfully. “You ought to earn enough for a new suit right away, of course, and have it ready—keep it nice, I mean, so that when a good opportunity offers, you will be suitably dressed to apply for it. Suppose I talk to Father? I’ll do it tonight. Meantime, you help me here a day or two, and then you go back to that garage and work for a week or two and earn money enough for your suit and what other things you need, and keep your eye open for something better all the while.”

“That’s the talk!” said Carey joyfully. “Now you’re shouting! You put some heart in a fella. Gee, I’m glad you’re home. It’s been awful without Mother. It was bad enough the last few months when she was sick, but it was some dump when she went away entirely.”

“Yes, I know,” said the sister sympathetically, reflecting that it would be wiser not to suggest that he might have helped to make the mother sick by his careless life. “Well, we must get things fixed up nice and pleasant for her when she gets back and try to keep her well and happy the rest of her life.”

“That’s right!” said Carey with a sudden deep note in his voice that came from the heart and gave Cornelia a bit of encouragement.

“I think I could clean that suit up a little for you and make it look better—”

Carey looked down at himself doubtfully.

“It’s pretty bad,” he said. “And it costs a lot to have it cleaned and pressed. I tried last week to do something, but we couldn’t find the irons.”

“I found them yesterday,” said Cornelia brightly. “We’ll see what we can do this evening if you can be at home.”

“Oh, this evening…” said Carey doubtfully.

“Yes, we can’t spare the time till then, because this house has got to be put in order.” She gave him a swift, anxious glance and a winning smile. “If you have another engagement, break it for once. There’s so much to be done, dear, and we do need you terribly. Tell that Brand friend of yours that you’re busy for a few days, and you’ll make it up by inviting him to a fudge party when we get settled.”

“Oh, gee! Could we?” said Carey half doubtful, half pleased. “Well, all right! I’ll do my best. Now, what do you want done with this old junk?”

“Those go on in the back shed, over by the tubs. Take that out in the yard and burn it, and this pile goes upstairs. Just put it in the upper hall, and I’ll attend to it later. My! What a difference it makes to get a little space clear!”

They worked steadily all the afternoon, Carey proving himself as willing as herself.

They washed the windows and the floor and swept down the walls of the parlor and hall.

“Ugly old wallpaper!” said Cornelia, eyeing it spitefully. “That’s got to come off if I have to do it myself and have bare walls.”

“Why, that’s easy!” said Carey. “Give me an old rag!” And he began to slop the water on and scrape with an old case knife.

“Well, that’s delightful!” said Cornelia with relief. “I didn’t know it would be so easy. We’ll do a little at a time until it is done, and then we’ll either paper it ourselves or paint it. I do wish we could manage to get a fireplace.”

“Well, maybe we can find some stone cheap where they’re hauling it away. Harry’ll know someplace likely; he gets around with that grocery wagon. You know I helped a stonemason last summer for a while. Mother hated it, though, so I quit, but I learned a lot about mixing cement and how to lay it on. I know about the drafts, too. I bet I could make as good a fireplace as the next one. Gee! I wish I knew where to get some stone or brick.”

“Stone would be best,” said Cornelia. “It would make a lovely chimney mantel, but I suppose you couldn’t be so elaborate as making a mantel!”

“Sure, I could! But it would take some stone to do all that.”

“I know where there’s a lot of stone!” They turned around surprised, and there stood Harry in the doorway with Louise just behind him, looking in with delighted faces at the newly cleaned room and the hardworking elder brother.

“Where?” Carey wheeled around eagerly.

“Down on the dump. It was brought there yesterday, a whole lot of it, several cartloads. Came from a place where they have been taking down an old wall, and they had no place to put it, I guess. Anyhow, it’s there.”

“I’ll go see if there’s enough,” said Carey, flashing out of the door and up the street.

He was back in a minute with a big stone in his hand.

“It’s just cellar stone,” he said deprecatingly, “but there’s plenty.”

“Humph!” said Louise maturely. “Well, I never thought I’d be glad I lived near that old dump! Do you mean we’re going to have a real fireplace, Carey?”

“That’s the idea, kid, and I guess I can make good. But how are we going to get that stone here?”

“There’s the express-wagon,” said Louise thoughtfully. “Harry has to work, but I could haul some.”

“You!” said Carey contemptuously. “Do you suppose I’d let a
girl
haul stone for me? No, I’ll go borrow a truck. I know a fella has one, and it’s almost quitting time. I know he’ll lend it to me; and if he does, I’ll work until I get those stones all landed, or like as not somebody else will get their eye on them. Stones like that cost a lot nowadays, even if they are only cellar stones.”

“Cellar stones are lovely,” said Cornelia delightedly. “They have a lot of iron in them and make very artistic houses. I heard a big architect say that once in a lecture at college.”

“Well, there’s nothing like being satisfied with what you have to have,” said Carey. “Here, Nell, you look out for the rest of that baseboard; I’m off to borrow a truck. Next time you see me I’ll be riding a load of stone!”

“I’ll come down at six o’clock and help you load!” shouted Harry from the third story, where he was rapidly changing into his working clothes.

“All right, kid, that’s the stuff. Nell will save us some supper, and we’ll work till dark.”