Carey 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 draughts, 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 to rights, 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 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 its 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.”
Cornelia thought of her hoarded money, and opened her lips to offer
some of it, then thought better of it. It would be good for Carey to
take some of the responsibility and earn the money to beautify the
house. He would be more interested in getting a job. So she smiled
assent, and told him to hurry and be sure to be back in time for
supper, for she was going to have veal potpie, and it had to be eaten
as soon as it was done, or it would fall.
Carey went away whistling, and Cornelia sat down to her stencilling.
She had done a great deal of this work at college, often making quite
a bit of money at it; so it was swift work, and soon she had a pair
of curtains finished, and pinned one up to the window to get the
effect. She was just getting down from the step-ladder when she heard
a knock at the door; and, wondering, she hurried to open it.
There stood a tall, bronzed man with a red face, very blue eyes, and
a pleasant smile; and it suddenly came over her that this must be
“Jim,” and she had forgotten to tell his wife not to send him over.
“My wife said you wanted me to come over and see about some work
you wanted done,” he said, pulling off his cap and stepping in.
“I thought I’d just run right in before dark, if you didn’t mind
work-clothes.”
“Oh, no,” said Cornelia, looking worried, “of course not; but really
I’m afraid I didn’t make it plain to your wife I haven’t any idea of
doing anything now—that is, I don’t suppose it would be possible—I
haven’t any money, and won’t have for a while.”
“That’s all right,” said the man, looking around the house alertly;
“it don’t cost nothing to estimate. I just love to estimate. What was
it you was calculating to do when you do build over?”
“Oh!” said Cornelia, abashed. “I don’t know that I had really thought
it all out, but this house is so cramped and ugly I was just wishing
I could take down this partition and throw the parlor and hall all
into one. Do you think the ceiling would stand that? I suppose it’s a
foolish idea, for I don’t know a thing about building; but this would
really make a very pretty room if the hall wasn’t cut off this way.”
The man stepped into the doorway, and looked up, eying the ceiling
speculatively, with his mouth open.
“Why, yes, you _could_ do that,” he drawled. “It’s a pretty long
span, but you could do it. You’d have to use a coupla colyooms to
brace her up, but that’s done—without you used a I beam. That you
could do.”
“An eye beam! What’s an eye beam?” asked Cornelia, interested.
“Why, it’s an iron beam running along underneath. You might be able
to get her under out of sight, but most likely you’d have to have her
below the ceiling. You could box her in, and you could make some more
of ’em, and have a beamed ceiling if you want.”
“Oh, a beamed ceiling! But that would be expensive. How much does an
eye beam cost?”
“Oh, I should say a matter of fifteen or eighteen dollars fer one
that long,” said the man, letting his eye rove back and forth over
the ceiling as if in search of a possible foot or two more of length
concealed somewhere.
“Oh!” said Cornelia again wistfully. “And would it cost much to put
it in?” She was trying to think just how much of that money was lying
in her drawer upstairs.
“Well, not so much if I did it evenings. That would make a mighty
nice room out of it, as you say. I’d be willing to let you have the
stuff it took at cost, and I might be able to get a second-handed I
beam. Come to think, there is one down to the shop a man ordered, and
then done ’ithout. I might get it for you as low as five dollars if
it would be long enough.”
He took out his foot rule and began to measure, and Cornelia drew her
breath quickly. It seemed too good to be true! If she only could make
over that room before her mother got home!
“What else was it you was calculatin’ to do?” the man asked, looking
up suddenly from the paper on which he had set down the measurement.
“I’ll look at that there I beam in the morning when I go down to the
shop. I believe she’s long enough. Was there anything else?”
“Well, my brother is trying to build a stone fireplace over on that
blank wall opposite, and I was wishing I had a window on each side,
the room is so dark. But I guess we would have to wait for that,
even if we did this. Windows are expensive, aren’t they?”
“Well, some; and then again they ain’t, if you get a second-handed
one. Sometimes people change their minds, and have a different kind
of winder after one’s made, and then it’s left on the boss’s hands,
and he’s glad to get rid of it at cost. Got a lot of winders all
sizes layin’ round over there. Get ’em cheap I guess. Say, you’d
oughtta have a coupla them di’mon’-pane winders, just smallish ones,
over there each side your chimney.”
He cast his eye around back to the hall, and pointed uncertainly
toward the long blank space of dull-brown faded wall-paper.
“Then you need a bay there,” he said interestedly. “Say, them bays
now do make a pretty spot in a room. Got one where I was workin’
yesterday, just sets right outa the room ’bout the height of a table,
like a little room; has three winders to it, and the woman has cute
little curtains to ’em, and ferns and a bird-cage. Say, that would
make your room real pleasant like.”
“It certainly would,” said Cornelia, her eyes shining and a wistful
sigh creeping to her lips; “but I guess it won’t be pos——”
“Say! You got some real nice curtains to your winders. I like them
birds flying.”
Then he caught a glimpse of the table over which Cornelia had spread
the curtain on which she was working. He saw the three birds already
finished, and the brush and paints and patterns lying there; and
then he glanced back at her in astonishment.
“Say, you don’t mean to say you’re _makin’_ them birds on them
curtains! My! Ain’t that interesting? How do you do it? Make one, and
le’me see.”
Cornelia obligingly sat down, and made two birds in flight while the
carpenter watched every movement, and exclaimed admiringly. It would
not have been Cornelia if she had not visioned at that instant how
her college-mates would laugh if they could see her now; but she
smiled to herself as she pleasantly showed him all the tricks of her
small craft.
“Well,” he said as she finished the second bird, “now ain’t that
great? I never supposed any one could do a thing like that. I
supposed it was done by machinery somehow. Say, I hope you won’t take
no offence, but would you be willing to do something like that fer
pay? Your saying you couldn’t afford them winders made me think of
it. I’d like mighty well to get some curtains for my wife for all
over the house; and if you could do some kind of a fancy pattern on
’em,—you and she could talk it over, and fix that,—I’d be willin’ to
trade off your work fer mine. She’d tell her friends, too, and you
could get other orders. I think it would pay.”
Cornelia’s cheeks grew rosy, but she held up her spirited little
head, and tried to be sensible about it. This wasn’t exactly what she
had expected, of course, to get her first order from a common working
man, but then, what difference? It was a real order and would bring
her and the family what they needed, more windows, more light, more
room; why not? And, if her dream of uplifting and beautifying homes
had been a true ideal, why, here was her opportunity. Everybody began
in a small way, and it really was wonderful to have opportunity, even
so humble as this, open up right at the beginning. She caught her
breath, and tried to think. Of course everybody began everything in a
small way at first.
“Well,” she said, hesitating, “I think perhaps I could. That is
really my business, you know, interior decorating. I mean to do it on
a large scale some day.”
“You don’t say!” said the man, looking at her admiringly. “I know
women is getting into business a lot these days. But I ain’t never
heard of that—what do you call it—interior decorating? You don’t mean
wall-paper and painting? ’Cause I could introduce you to my boss. He
builds a lot of houses.”
“Well, yes,” said Cornelia, trying not to laugh. “My business is
after the house is all built. I select wall-papers and curtains, and
tell them what furniture to get, or how to arrange what furniture
they have so it will look well in a room. I’ve been studying along
those lines in college; it’s artistic work, you know.”
“I see!” said the man, looking at her with narrowing, speculative
eyes; “good idea, real good idea! Like to have some one arrange
my house. Tell us what to buy. We’re laying out to get some new
furnitoor, either a parlor soot or a dining-room, though my wife’s
got her heart set on a new bedroom outfit, and I don’t know which’ll
come off first. Guess I’ll send her in to talk it over with you. I
like them little birds real well. Where you goin’ to put ’em? Here?”
He looked at the two long front windows.
“No, these are going up on the third floor in my brother’s room, the
front room. I’m going to make that all blue and white, and these blue
birds will make it look cheerful.”
“H’m! I guess when Nannie sees ’em she’ll be strong fer the bedroom
set, and let the other rooms go a spell till we can afford it.”
“Why not paint your old bedroom set, and have it decorated like your
curtains, and save the money for some good furniture downstairs? They
are using painted furniture a lot now for bedrooms.”
He stared at her eagerly.
“There, now, see? I told you you were going to be real useful to me.
You’ve saved me the price of a bedroom set a’ready. It’s a bargain.
You do the decorating, and I’ll do the carpentering. I’ll see about
them winders, and let you know tomorrow afternoon.”
When he had gone, Cornelia stood in the middle of her dreary little
parlor, and looked around with startled eyes. Here she had contracted
to have windows put in and the partition taken down, and promised to
go into business herself right away at once. What would her father
say to it all?
But she could see Harry and Louise coming down the street, and she
hurried into the kitchen to prepare the dessert for dinner; for it
was getting late for what she had planned.
She must put the new ideas out of her mind and get back to her work,
or dinner would be late.
The children came bursting into the kitchen, eager to see how much
Carey had accomplished, and clattered down cellar and up again, their
hands full of cookies their sister had baked, their eyes happy, and
somehow home and life looked good to Cornelia. This was the great
day at college when the play on which she had spent so much time
and thought was to come off, and she had expected to have a hard
time bearing the thought that all that was going on and she not in
it; but she never once thought of it all day until just as her head
was touching the pillow that night, and then she was so sleepy that
it only came as a floating thought of some far-off period of her
existence in which she now had no part. She was wholly and entirely
interested just now in her home and what she was going to do for the
neighborhood. She had not told her father yet about the carpenter and
his propositions. She wanted to have something more definite to tell,
perhaps to surprise her family with, if possible; so she had merely
asked him casually if he objected to her making little inexpensive
changes in the house, things that she could manage herself; and he
had joyously told her to do what she liked, pull the walls down if
she wanted to, only so she got things fixed to please her.