Without the slightest hesitation Jerry opened the garden gate, went up
the path and up the steps, and rang the bell. At least, he imagined that
he rang the bell, but as a matter of fact he did nothing except turn a
handle which was connected with nothing. After two or three attempts he
began to suspect this, and knocked instead, which soon brought some one
running along the hall to open the door.
He was astounded--not because it was a girl, and not because she was
pretty. He had seen pretty girls before, and knew that they were likely
to crop up anywhere; but this girl had exactly the sort of prettiness he
had been looking for and waiting for so long that he had almost given up
hope of finding it.
She was tall, slender, dark-browed, so gracious and serene, with lovely,
fragile hands; and her eyes! They were black eyes, so clear, so quiet,
so luminous and untroubled! It didn’t make the least difference that she
was wearing a gingham apron and carried a rolling pin under her arm. She
was matchless, she was incomparable, in her was personified all the
romance left in the world.
“Did you--” she began, and hesitated. “Are you--”
“I thought--” he answered, still a little dazzled. “That is, I thought
maybe--”
It was this tremendously important and significant conversation that the
portly, white-haired lady interrupted. She appeared suddenly in the
background, and regarded them with severe astonishment.
“Are you the plumber?” she inquired of Jerry, raising her eyebrows. “Run
away, Lynn!”
“I don’t think so,” he answered absently, because he was watching Lynn
“run away” as slowly as any healthy human being could well move.
“Indeed!” said she. “The plumber should be here.”
The inference evidently was that Jerry Sargent should have been the
plumber.
“No,” he added, with a smothered sigh. “I just stopped in to see if
there was anything you wanted done.”
“There are several things that I want done,” she replied; “but I trust I
shall be able to find the proper workmen to do them. I need a plumber
and a carpenter. Are you a carpenter?”
Now Jerry knew very well that she knew he wasn’t a carpenter, and that
she simply wished to be obnoxious. On the spur of the moment, looking
steadily at her, he answered:
“Yes, I am. Any little odd jobs you’d like done?”
She returned his glance with one quite as steady.
“There are,” she said.
With that, he promptly took off his coat, and she, equally determined to
see the thing through, led him into the dismal front room.
“I want shelves put up,” said she. “Three rows--on this wall. There are
boards in the cellar for that purpose.”
Fortunately Jerry was by nature “handy,” and in his younger days had had
much experience in building chicken houses and rabbit hutches and such
things. With the calmest air in the world he set to work, wondering for
what possible reason she could want a triple row of enormous shelves.
For some time the portly lady watched him, but that didn’t worry him,
for he felt sure that she knew even less than he did about putting up
shelves; and at last she went away.
When he was alone, he couldn’t help laughing. It might have ended that
way, with Jerry thinking the whole thing a rather idiotic joke, in which
he was getting somewhat the worst of it, if something had not happened
to change the aspect of the situation.
He was hammering away at a bracket which would--he hoped--support one
end of one of those monster shelves, when he heard a light footstep
behind him. He turned and saw the incomparable girl.
She smiled in her serious way, and Jerry tried to look equally serious,
but did not succeed very well. In the first place, it wasn’t natural to
him to be serious, and, in the second place, he was extraordinarily
pleased to see the incomparable girl again. He couldn’t help fancying
that she shared at least a little in his delight.
Anyhow, she was very friendly toward this strange carpenter. She asked
him if he needed anything else for his work. He thanked her earnestly
and said that he did not. Then she advanced a little farther into the
room, and laid one of her slender little hands on the boards standing
against the wall.
“Is the work very hard?” she asked.
“No,” said Sargent. “I like it--very much!”
There was a long silence. She was still standing beside the boards,
running her delicate fingers along the edges, with her eyes thoughtfully
downcast. The shifting sunshine, filtering through the leafy branches
outside, threw a wondrous light upon her gleaming dark hair and her
pale, clear features. Somehow it hurt Jerry to look at her. There was
something about her, some intangible shadow over her young face, which
made him feel sure that she had endured much, and had endured it with
fortitude and courage.
“The poor little thing!” he thought. “Shut up here in this dismal hole,
with that dragon! Oh, the poor, poor little thing!”
He suddenly realized that he was in his shirt sleeves. With a hasty
apology, he put on his coat.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not really a carpenter.”
“I knew you weren’t,” said she. “I knew you were--well, I mean, I knew
you weren’t.”
Another silence.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. “I’d be--oh!”
“What’s the matter?” cried Jerry.
“Nothing,” she answered, but he saw her pull a handkerchief out of her
pocket and wrap her hand in it.
“Let me see!” he commanded.
“Really it’s nothing,” she protested; “only a splinter from those
boards. I should have known better.”
Well, splinters ought to be taken out, lest they fester; and it was the
most natural thing in the world for Jerry to insist upon performing the
operation. She fetched a needle, and he burned the point in the flame of
a match, and grasped her injured hand firmly.
He hadn’t realized what it would mean. The splinter was long and deeply
embedded, and he could not help hurting her. She winced and bit her lip.
When at last the heartbreaking job was done, his face was quite pale. He
still held her hand, and was looking at her with the most miserable
contrition; but she smiled.
“You mustn’t be so silly!” she said. “It’s really--”
“Lynn!” said an awful voice.
Lynn, suddenly growing very red, escaped at once, and Jerry saw her no
more that day.
He would perfectly well endure being called a plumber, a carpenter, and
a chance acquaintance, but he could not endure this. He no longer wished
to laugh, he no longer saw this thing as a joke. On the contrary, he
was immeasurably offended by the suspicious and scornful glare he got
from the portly, white-haired lady.