Re-Creations (11 page)

“It won’t be dark,” said Louise sagely. “It’s moonlight tonight.”

“That’s right, too,” said Carey as he seized his hat and dashed out of the house.

Chapter 8

Y
ou’ve got him to work!” said Louise joyously, looking at her sister with shining eyes.

“I didn’t do it,” said Cornelia, smiling. “He came of his own accord and seems awfully interested.”

“Well, it’s because you’re here, of course; that makes all the difference in the world.”

“Thank you, Louie,” said her sister, stooping to kiss the warm cheek lovingly.

“Now,” said Louise, pulling off her clean middy blouse and starting upstairs, “what do you want me to do first?”

“Well, I thought maybe you’d like to dust these books and put them in the bookcase, dear. Then they’ll be out of our way.”

Louise was rapidly buttoning herself into her old gingham work dress when Cornelia came hurriedly from the kitchen and called up the stairs, a note of dismay in her voice.

“Louie, I don’t suppose you happen to know who owns this house, do you? It’s just occurred to me we’ll have to ask permission to build a fireplace, and that may upset the whole thing. Maybe the owner won’t want an amateur to build a fireplace in his house.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” shouted Louise happily, appearing at the stair head. “Father owns it. It was the only thing he had left after he lost his money.”

“Father owns it?” said Cornelia incredulously. “How strange! A house like this! When did he buy it?”

“He didn’t buy it. He signed a note for a poor man, and then the man died and never paid the money, and Father had to take the house.”

“Oh!” said Cornelia thoughtfully, seeing more tragedy in the family history and feeling a sudden great tenderness for the father who had borne so many disappointments and yet kept sweet and strong. “Well, then, anyhow we can do as we please with it,” she added happily. “I’m awfully glad. I guess we shan’t have to ask permission. Father’ll like it all right.”

“Well, I rather guess he will, especially if it keeps Carey busy a little while,” said Louise.

They worked rapidly and happily together, and soon the books were in orderly rows in the bookcase.

Cornelia had found a bundle of old curtains in one of the boxes, and now she brought them out and began to measure the windows.

“The lace curtains all wore out, and Mother threw them away,” volunteered Louise sadly.

“Never mind. I’ve found a lot of pretty good scrim ones here, and I’m going to wash them and stencil a pattern of wild birds across them,” said Cornelia. “They’ll do for the bedrooms, anyway. The windows are the same size all over the house, aren’t they? I have some beautiful patterns for stenciling up in my trunk that I made for some of the girls’ curtains at college.”

“How perfectly dear!” said Louise. “Can’t I go up and find them?”

“Yes, they are in the green box just under the tray. I wish we had a couple more windows in this room; it is so dark. If I were a carpenter for a little while I would knock out that partition into the hall and saw out two windows, one each side of the fireplace over there,” said Cornelia, motioning toward the blank sidewalls where already her mind had reared a lovely stone fireplace.

“There’s a carpenter lives next door,” said Louise thoughtfully. “He goes to work every morning at seven o’clock, but I suppose he would charge a lot.”

“I wonder,” said Cornelia. “We’ll have to think about that.” And she stood off in the hall and began to look around with her eyelashes drawn down like curtains through which she was sharply watching a thought that had appeared on her mental horizon.

On the whole it was a very exciting evening, and a happy one also. When Harry and his father came home, there were two loads of stone already neatly piled inside the little yard, and Carey was just flourishing up to the door with a loud honk of the horn on his borrowed truck, bringing a third load. Harry had of course told his father the new plans, and the father had been rather dubious about such a scheme.

“He’ll just begin it and then go off and leave a mess around,” he had told Harry with a sigh.

But, when he saw the eager light on his eldest son’s face, he took heart of hope. Carey was so lithe and alert, worked with so much precision, strength, and purpose, and seemed so intent on what he was doing. Perhaps, after all, something good would come of it, although he looked with an anxious eye at the borrowed car and wondered what he would do if Carey should break it and be liable for its price.

Harry turned to and helped with the unloading, and both were persuaded to come in barely for five minutes’ bit at the good dinner that was already on the table. They dispatched it with eagerness and little ceremony and were off for another load, asking to have their pudding saved until they returned, as every minute must count before dark, and they had no time for pudding just now.

When the boys were away again, Cornelia began to talk with her father about Carey. She told him a little of their talk that morning and persuaded him not to say anything for a while to stop Carey from working at the garage until he had earned enough to buy some new clothes and get a little start. The father reluctantly consented, although he declared it would not do any good, for Carey would spend every cent he earned on his wild young friends, and if he bought any clothes, they would be evening clothes. He had seen before how it worked. Nevertheless, although he spoke discouragedly, Cornelia knew that he would stand by her in her attempt to help Carey back to respectability, and she went about clearing off the supper table with a lighter heart.

After supper she saw to it that there was plenty of hot water for baths when the boys got through their work, and she got out an old flannel shirt and a pair of Carey’s trousers and set a patch and mended a tear and put them in order for work. Then she had the ironing board and a basin and soap ready for cleaning his other clothes when he came in. Carey-like, he had gone to haul all that stone in the only suit he had to wear for good. She sighed as she thought what a task was before her. For something inside Carey needed taking out and adjusting before Carey would ever be a dependable, practical member of the family. Nevertheless, she was proud of him as she listened to the thud of each load and glanced out of the front window at the ever-increasing pile of stones that now ran over the tiny front yard and was encroaching on the path that led to the back door.

“Gotta get ‘em all, or somebody else’ll get onto it and take ‘em,” declared Harry when he came in for a drink, his face and hands black and a happy, manly look around his mouth and eyes.

It was ten o’clock when the last load was dumped, by the light of all the lamps in the house brought out into the yard, and it was more than an hour later before the boys got back from returning the truck to its owner. They were tired and dirty almost beyond recognition but happier than they had been for many a day, and glad of the bit of a feast that their sister had set out for them, and of the hot baths.

“Well, if we don’t have a fireplace now, it won’t be my fault!” declared Harry, mopping a warm red face with a handkerchief that had seen better days. “Gee! We certainly did work. Carey can work, too, when he tries, I’ll say.” And there was a note of admiration in his voice for his elder brother, which was not missed by either the brother or the watching sisters. Everybody slept well that night, and they were all so weary that they came near to oversleeping the next morning.

It was after the children had gone to school and Carey was off getting lime and sand and cement for his work that Cornelia went out into the backyard to hang up the curtains that she had just washed, and turning toward the line, she encountered a pair of curious eyes under the ruffle of a pretty calico nightcap whose owner was standing on the neighboring back porch, the one to the left, where Louise had said the carpenter lived.

“Good morning!” said the other woman briskly, as if she had a perfect right to be intimate. “You all ain’t going to build, are you? I see all them stones come last night, and I couldn’t make out what in life you all was going to do with ‘em, lessen you was goin’ to pull down and build out.”

Cornelia had a foolish little hesitancy in responding to this lively overture, for her instinct was to look down upon people who lived in so poor a neighborhood, but she reflected quickly that she was living there herself, and perhaps these people didn’t like it any better than she did. Why should she look down upon them? So she looked up with a pleasant smile, if a trifle belated.

“Oh, good morning. No, we’re only going to have a fireplace. I wish we were going to build; the house isn’t arranged at all the way I should like it, and it’s such fun to have things made the way you want them, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” said the neighbor, eyeing her curiously. “I s’pose it is. I never have tried it. My husband’s a carpenter, and of course he don’t have time to make things for me. It’s like the shoemaker’s children goin’ barefoot, as the sayin’ is. I was going to say that, if you all was buildin’, my husband, being a carpenter, might be handy for you. He takes contracts sometimes.”

“Oh, does he?” Cornelia’s color rose brightly. “I certainly wish we could afford to have some work done. There are two windows I need badly and a partition I want down, but I can’t do it now. Perhaps later, when Mother gets home from the hospital and we’re not under such heavy expense, we can manage it.”

The neighbor eyed her thoughtfully.

“Be nice if you could have ‘em done when she got back,” she suggested. “Your mother looked to be an awful sweet woman. I saw her when she come here first, and I said to my husband, I said, ‘Jim, them’s nice people. It does one good to have a woman like that livin’ next door; she’s so ladylike and pretty, don’t you know, and so kinda sweet.’ I was awful sorry when I heard she had to go to the hospital. Say, she certainly did look white when they took her away. My, but ain’t she fortunate she’s got a daughter old enough to fill her place? You been to college, ain’t you? My, but that’s fine! Well, say, I’ll tell Jim about it. Mebbe he could do your work for you nights if you wasn’t in a hurry, and then it wouldn’t come so high, you know. It would be nice if you could get it all fixed up for your ma when she comes back. Jim wouldn’t mind when you paid him, you know. I’ll tell him to come in and look it over when he gets in this afternoon, anyhow.”

“Oh!” said Cornelia, taking a quick breath of astonishment. “Oh, really I couldn’t believe you more. Of course, I might manage part of what I want if it didn’t cost too much, but I’ve heard all building is very high now.”

She was making a lightning calculation and thinking of the money she had brought back from college. Would it—could she? Ought she? It would be so nice if she dared!

“That’s all right. You’re a neighbor, and Jim wouldn’t mind doing a good turn. He’d make it as cheap as he could. It won’t cost nothing for him to look it over, anyhow. I’ll tell him when he comes back. My goodness! I smell that bread burning. Excuse me, I must go in.”

And the neighbor vanished, leaving Cornelia bewildered and a trifle upset and immediately certain that she ought not to allow the woman to send in her husband. Well, she would think it over and run in later to tell her it was impossible. That was clearly the only thing to do.

So she hurried back to put on the irons, for her curtains would soon be dry enough to iron, and she wanted to get them stenciled and up as soon as possible; the windows looked so bare and staring, especially up in Carey’s room.

Chapter 9

C
arey came back and worked all the morning in the cellar at the foundation for his fireplace, occasionally coming up to measure and talk learnedly about drafts and the like. Cornelia was very happy seeing him at it, whether a fireplace ever resulted or not. It was enough that he was interested and eager over it. And while she was waiting for her irons to heat, she sat down and wrote a bright little letter to her mother, telling how Carey was helping her put the house in order, although she carefully refrained from mentioning a fireplace, for she was still dubious about whether it would be a success. But late in the afternoon, after the lunch was cleared away, the dinner well started, and the beautifully laundered curtains spread out on the dining room couch ready for decoration, Carey called her down to the cellar and proudly showed her a large, neat, square section of masonry arising from the cellar floor beneath the parlor to the height of almost her shoulders and having its foundation down at proper depth for safety so he told her.

“My! How you’ve worked, Carey! I think it’s wonderful you’ve accomplished so much in such a short time.”

“Aw! That’s nothing!” said Carey, exuding delight at her praise. “I coulda done more if I hadn’t had to go after the stuff. But say, Nell, I promised Pat I’d come around and help him with a big truck this afternoon, and I guess I better go now or I won’t get home in time for supper. Pat owes me five dollars anyhow, and I need it to pay for the stuff I bought this morning. I told the fella I’d bring it round this afternoon.”