Cornelia awoke with a great zeal for work upon her. She had dreamed
a living room that would lift the whole house out of the sordid
neighborhood and make it a place of delight. She had thought out some
built-in seats with lockers where many of the odds and ends could be
stowed; she had planned to paint the old, cheap dining-room furniture
a wonderful deep-cream enamel and decorate it like some of the
expensive sets in the stores; so would she treat the old bedroom sets
that were not of real wood. The set in Carey’s room was old walnut
and valuable. A little oil would bring it back to its rich brown
beauty. The set in her mother’s room was a cheap one; and that she
would paint gray with decorations of little pink buds and trailing
vines. The set in her own room should be ivory-white with sepia
shadows. She would go somewhere and learn how to put on wall-paper,
or find a man who would do it very cheaply; and little by little the
old house should be made over. Cheap felt-paper of pale gray or pearl
or cream for the bedrooms, and corn-color for the living room. She
wasn’t sure what she would do with the dining-room yet till she had
the furniture painted, perhaps paint the walls white, and tack little
moldings in patterns around for panels outlined in green. Green!
That was the color for the dining-room furniture. A green and white
dining-room, with a fern-dish for the centre of the table and a grass
rug under the table. White curtains with green stencilling! That was
it! And Carey’s room should be painted white, walls and ceiling and
all. She would set him at it as soon as he finished the fireplace,
and then she would stencil little birds, or a more conventional
pattern around the top of the walls for a border, in the same blue as
the curtains. That would be a room to which he could bring home his
friends. A picture or two well chosen,—she had the Lone Wolf in her
trunk done in steel-blues, the very thing for one,—and an unbleached
muslin bedspread and pillow roll also stencilled in blue. That would
make a beautiful room. Then the bathroom, of course, must be all
white, heavy white enamel. She saw where her money would go now, in
pots of paint and brushes, and the work would take days, weeks; but
it would be beautiful. She could see her dream before her, and was
happy.
She went downstairs, and found the fire out. That made delay. It was
her own fault, of course; she had forgotten to look after it the last
thing at night, and also everybody else had forgotten. Her father
had gone to bed early with a neuralgic headache. He usually looked
after the fire. Carey ought to have thought of it, but Carey never
thought of anything but himself and his own immediate plans unless
his interest was held. Cornelia found on looking for it in her haste
that her stock of patience had run low; and added to this she had a
stiff shoulder from washing windows, and Harry had a bad toothache,
and had to hurry away to the dentist’s. Carey didn’t get up at all
when he was called, and Louise and Cornelia had a rough time of it
making some coffee for their father over the gas-flame. There was
no time to wait for the fire, for father must catch his car at the
regular time, whether he had breakfast or not. When Louise had gone
off to school, and Harry, returning redolent of cloves and creosote,
had also been fed and comforted and sent off with an excuse to his
teacher, Cornelia wanted to sit down and cry. Suddenly the whole
thing seemed a house of cards. The sordid neighborhood became more
sordid than ever, the house too dingy and hopeless for words, all her
plans tawdry and cheap and useless. Why try, when the result to be
attained at best would be but a makeshift of poverty?
To add to her misery, the morning mail brought letters of condolence
from her classmates because she could not be with them at the play,
and bits of news about how this and that were going wrong because
she wasn’t there, and who was trying to take her place and bungling
things.
Suddenly Cornelia put her head down on the dining-room table in
the midst of the breakfast clutter, and cried. She felt sorrier
and sorrier for herself. Carey upstairs, great, big, lazy fellow,
sleeping and letting her make the fire and do the work and carry
the burden. He ought to be out hunting a job and helping to fill
the family purse. He ought to be up and at his fireplace. She felt
like going up and shaking him and telling him just how despicable he
was; and she wished she could shut up the house and go off all day
somewhere, and have a good time. She was tired, and she loathed the
thought of washing windows and scouring the floor and getting meals.
Even stencilling curtains had lost its charm.
She became ashamed of herself presently, remembering her mother and
how many years she had done all these things and more. She dried
her eyes and began to clear off the table. She had barely finished
when she had a visitation from the woman next door, who came beaming
in to see the curtains her husband had told her about, and to ask
whether Cornelia minded her having blue birds on some of her curtains
if she put them on the other side of the house. Somehow the woman’s
eagerness to have her home made over into an artistic one melted away
some of Cornelia’s gloom, and she was able to rise to the occasion
and talk with her neighbor almost as enthusiastically as if she had
been really interested. Perhaps she was interested; she wasn’t sure.
Anyway, it was going to be fun to get rid of ugly things in that
woman’s house and substitute simple, pretty ones. When Mrs. Barkley
got up to go Cornelia thought she heard faint movements up in the
third story, and took heart. When she opened the door to let her
neighbor out, promising to run in sometime within a day or two and
look over the rooms, the sun shot out from behind a grim cloud, and
flooded the damp street with glory; and Cornelia began to feel better.
Carey came down whistling, and twinkling with good humor; and she
hadn’t the heart to give him the reprimand he richly deserved. She
smiled a good morning, and he went at the kitchen range with a good
will.
They had an early lunch and breakfast together, and Carey went to
work at his stonework once more.
It was a trifle after two o’clock when Brand Barlock arrived on the
scene.
Carey was down cellar picking up the last stones and poking them
through the opening he had cut in the parlor floor. He was making
such a racket that he did not hear the insistent honk! honk! of the
horn. But Cornelia polishing off the front window where some of the
wet paper of the day before had stuck, did hear; and she looked
out at the expensive car with a sinking heart. That must be Brand
Barlock! But surely, _surely_ Carey wouldn’t go off now in the midst
of his work, when he was so anxious to finish!
After several almost insolent honks of the horn, and imperious looks
houseward, a boy in the back seat got out, received some brief
instruction from the handsome youth who was the driver, and came and
knocked at the door. Cornelia stepped into the hall, and opened the
door.
“Kay here?” asked the boy. “Oh!” Seeing Cornelia, he dragged off his
cap perfunctorily.
The boy had a pleasant face, though weak; and Cornelia smiled. If
this was one of Carey’s friends, she would know him sometime, and she
must make a good impression upon him. She wanted the boys to come and
see Carey rather than to always be carrying him off.
“Why, yes, he’s here,” said Cornelia. “But he’s awfully busy. We’re
getting settled, you know. Could I give him a message?”
“Why, oh, yes! Tell him Brand Barlock wants him. Tell him he wants
him right away quick, please. Brand’s in an awful hurry.”
If he had said, “The President of the United States is here, and
wants to see Carey,” he could not have given the order more loftily.
Cornelia turned doubtfully. She wanted to resent this imperious tone;
but perhaps Carey wouldn’t like it, and, after all, boys were—well,
just boys. When they were at that age, they likely thought they were
it.
“I’ll tell him,” she said pleasantly. “Won’t you step in? We don’t
look very nice here yet, but we hope to be ready to offer more
hospitality to our friends soon.”
The boy looked at her as if he was surprised to find her human. “Naw,
thanks. I’ll stay here,” he replied, and tapped his foot impatiently.
She gathered that Carey’s family meant nothing at all and less than
nothing to this uninteresting youth; but she turned and went swiftly
through the hall and the dining-room and down the cellar stairs
rather than to call Carey through the opening in the floor. Carey
might not care to see these friends of his in his present attire.
“Gosh!” said Carey, looking down at his dishevelled self when she
had told him. “Well, I s’pose I’ve got to go up. Can’t keep Brand
waiting. Oh, gee! I thought I’d get this up through the floor today.”
“But Carey,” cried his sister, putting out a detaining hand, “can’t I
explain to him what you’re doing? Surely he will understand that you
are busy and can’t come. Can’t I ask him to come down to you if he
must see you now? If he sees what you are doing, you won’t look so
bad.”
He stopped short in the cellar, and looked at her witheringly.
“Ask Brand Barlock to come down _here_? Well, I should say _not_!”
“Why not?” she asked with unconscious scorn. “Is he as grand as all
that? Who on earth is he, anyway?”
But Carey was gone, taking the stairs three steps at a time. He was
out at the car when his sister got back to her window, staying only
a minute, and then tearing back and up the two flights of stairs to
his room, while the car waited in front in grave importance. The
sounds above stairs indicated that Carey was performing a hasty and
tempestuous toilet. The water gushed in the bathroom in full force;
and splashing, slamming doors, dropping shoes, hurrying footsteps,
succeeded one another. The jamming of a bureau drawer, the dropping
of a hairbrush, told his worried sister that Carey was “dressing up”
and going somewhere.
Cornelia climbed the stairs to remonstrate, but was prevented with a
snort before she spoke.
“Oh, doggone that collar button! That’s always the way when I’m in a
hurry.”
“Carey, are you—you’re not—” She stopped to gather breath, and began
again, “Carey, is there anything I can do to help you?”
“Only just get out of my way—_please_!” he roared as he tore past
her down the stairs to the bathroom again and began to strop his
razor furiously.
She came downstairs slowly, trying to think what to do. Calamity of
unnamed proportions loomed ahead, and she felt she must prevent it
somehow. She paused in the hall.
“Carey, is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously.
“There you are again, doggone it! Now you’ve made me cut myself, and
I haven’t another collar. No, of course there isn’t anything the
matter. I’m just in a hurry, can’t you _see_? They’re waiting for me!”
“Well, but why are you so cross?”
“Aw! I’m not cross. I’m just nervous. Now, just look at that collar!
It’s just like all my luck.”
“I think your laundry came this morning,” volunteered his sister.
“Well! Why didn’t you say so? Where is it?”
“Look here, Carey,” she said with fire in her eye, “you have no need
to be a bear; and, if you want me to get your collar, you’ll have to
speak decently, or I won’t have anything more to do with you.”
There was silence in the bathroom for the space of half a second;
then an obviously controlled voice said:
“Pardon me, Nell. I’m almost cr-r-azy. Can’t you see?”
“Why, yes!” said his sister significantly, and went swiftly
downstairs for the package of laundry.
Carey was elaborately polite when she presented it, but he refrained,
boy-like from telling her that he was going after a job he had heard
about, which would have made the whole affair perfectly reasonable to
her. “What business is it of hers?” he reasoned. “And then suppose I
didn’t get it?”
So he stormed from the house like a whirlwind, leaving no word of
when he would return; and Cornelia was too much on her dignity to
ask him. She stood at the window, watching him out of sight, the
quick tears springing into her eyes. What a boisterous, gay bunch
they were, all of them, piling into the car, which started even
before they were in. What a noise the car made, as if it too had
partaken of the spirit of its owner and went roaring through the
world with a daredevil blare and throb of a perverted fire-engine
just to attract attention and show the world they didn’t care! Her
cheeks grew hot with shame over it, and for some strange reason
her imagination conjured up a possible day in the future when that
fair lady, her fellow traveller of the other day, with her handsome
son should perhaps come to call upon her. How terrible to have it
happen when her brother would go roaring away from the house in this
wild fashion! Oh, how had Carey ever grown into such a person? So
impossible a combination!
She came and stood beside the yawning hole in the parlor floor. How
hard he had worked. How much in earnest he had been! And then at a
snap of the finger from this young lord of creation he had dropped it
all and fled on some fool whim or other, who knew?
She felt sick and utterly tired, and as if she could not go on with
her own work. She had just dropped into a chair and covered her face
with her hands when there came a knock at the door. For an instant
she meditated not noticing it, but, thinking better of it, hastily
brushed her hand across her wet eyes and hurried to answer the knock.
It was her carpenter, tall and smiling, with a kit of tools and a big
window-frame on a wheelbarrow just behind him.
“Well, I brought one along fer you to see,” he said, stooping to lift
the frame and bring it in. “They said you could have ’em fer two and
a half apiece, and I thought that was reasonable. Now, where was it
you wanted ’em? There’s four or five available. You can take as many
as you want and leave the rest, and there’s a bay like I was telling
you. He says he’ll make it five, ’cause he wants to get it out of the
way. It has these here di’mon panes. It’s real pretty like.”
Cornelia had stood back aghast at sight of the window-frame; but,
when she heard the price, she opened the door wide, and forgot all
her troubles for the moment.
“Oh, how wonderful!” she said, her eyes shining. “Come in. Could
you—you couldn’t—put it in _now_?”
“Why, yes, that’s what I come fer, if you want it done. Course I
don’t want to force it on you, but I thought you could tell if it
would do. We quit early today, ’count of being all done at one place
and not wanting to begin another till Monday cause the stuff ain’t
come yet; so I just thought to me I’d bring my tools and work all
day tomorrow and Saturday,—course that’s a half, but then— And, if
you wanted, I’d go at this job right off. I oughtta be able to get
this winder in by dark. Of course that’s working after union hours,
but this here don’t count, being right next door home, you know; it’s
kind of a favor to a neighbor, see? I brought the sash and all; its
standing just outside, against the house. Now, you want these one
each side the fireplace, don’t you?”
Cornelia drew a deep breath of daring and said, “Yes!” and then
suddenly was glad—just a little—that Carey had been called away. Now
she could surprise the whole family.
With her heart in her mouth she stood by the open parlor door, and
watched a great hole arrive in the blank wall, and then with a breath
of relief turned and sped quickly upstairs to make up for lost time
and to put the rooms there in order. It would soon be time for the
children to come home from school. How surprised they would be! She
knew she could count on both of them to be delighted; but she wished
it had been possible for that window to be in before they arrived,
it would be such fun to surprise them with it. Then she glanced out
the window, and saw a little girl coming in the gate; and she hurried
down to the door to see what was wanted.
“Why,” began the small maiden, “your sister Lou said to tell you she
ner Harry wouldn’t be home till late. She said they had to practise
that play fer the entertainment. She said you needn’t to worry. She
said to tell you Harry had telephoned to the store, and it’s all
right.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Cornelia with a pleased smile. Now there would
be something done to show them when the children got home. How nice
that the rehearsal should happen today! She had almost forgotten her
disappointment about Carey in her desire to surprise the family.
The man went right at the work, and she could see in five minutes
that he was interested and was no laggard. In half an hour they
had located the window, and he had half of the opening sawed out.
Cornelia went back to the kitchen to get some neglected cooking under
way; and, when she returned, he was fitting the window-frame. She
looked around the little room with delight. What a difference it
was going to make to have light and air from that side! She slipped
happily back to her work again, and the sound of the saw and hammer
was like music to her soul. There was no longer any doubt whether she
ought to have waited. Now and then the thought of Carey hurt through
her brain like a sting of something sharp, but she soothed herself by
making custard pies for supper. Carey liked custard pies, and while
she was making them it seemed easier to believe he would return in
time for the evening meal.
At a quarter to six the carpenter went home. He had finished putting
in the window, and had marked out the place for the other one. He
had also ripped off the base boards on the parlor side of the wall
that was to come down, and had taken off the trim of the door-frame.
It began to look like business. He promised to come in the morning
and bring the I beam and the other window. As he had to go to his
boss’s shop for them, she had no fear he would arrive before her
family were away. So with a gleeful glance at the new window Cornelia
carefully closed the parlor door, and turned the key in the lock,
putting it into her pocket. If the family questioned, she would say
that she thought it safer to keep it locked lest some one might
forget in the dark and fall into that open fireplace hole. Then,
hugging her secret to her heart, she hurried back to get her dinner
ready to serve.
The children came tumbling joyously into the side door, both talking
at once about the play and demanding to know how much Carey had got
done on the fireplace, and their father smiling behind, interested in
all—but Carey had not come yet!