The children found out at once that Carey had gone with Brand, and
a gloom settled over the little household. Cornelia had no trouble
in keeping them out of the parlor; they did not want to go in. Even
Harry seemed oppressed, and broke out every few minutes while he ate
his supper with, “Aw, gee! If I was a fella!”
Cornelia suddenly roused to break the gloom that had fallen upon
them. She looked at her younger brother with a cheery smile.
“Well you will be some day. You are already, you know, really.”
Harry looked up proudly, and met her appreciation with a glow.
“I think,” said Cornelia thoughtfully, “that this would be a nice
night to clean the kitchen, if you all could help.”
“Clean the kitchen!” They looked up unenthusiastically. “Why, I
thought you cleaned that the first day. It looked awfully nice,” said
Louise. Somehow kitchens seemed uninteresting places.
“Oh, but not really clean,” said Cornelia, taking a deep breath and
trying to get courage for the evening, for she was already weary
enough to rest; but she must do something to take the family mind off
Carey and that locked parlor door if she wanted her plans to succeed.
“I want to paint it all white, walls and ceiling and woodwork; and
then I want to paint the floor gray, and put that waterproof varnish
on it so it will wash up easily. Those boards are very hard to keep
clean the way they are and show every grease-spot. Did you ever paint
Harry?”
“Oh sure. I painted the porch down to the grocery, and the hen-house,
and all around the window-sills for Mrs. Brannon. I can paint. Got
any brushes?”
“Yes, I got one for each of us the other day, and a can of paint to
be ready when there was time. Then, father I wonder if you couldn’t
put up some brackets, and fix those old marbles for me.”
“Marbles?”
“Yes, those old marbles that came off the wash-stand and bureau
that fell to pieces. They are out in the back shed, and I want one
of them put on the dresser, screwed on, you know, so I can use it
for a molding-board, and the other two, the back and top of the old
wash-stand put up on brackets for shelves in the kitchen, near the
sink. They’ll save buying oilcloth, and be lovely to work on, and
simply delightful to clean.”
“Why, I guess I can fix them. There’s an old marble-topped table
around somewhere, too.”
“I know; I’m going to paint the woodwork white, and get some
ball-bearing casters for it, and use it in the kitchen to work on.
Then I can wheel it around where I need it, over by the sink when I’m
washing dishes, over by the stove to hold the bowl of batter when I’m
baking cakes.”
“Say, that’ll be great!” cried Louise. “Oh! I never realized a
kitchen could be pretty. Why, I’d like to wash dishes in a place like
that—all white! Say, Nellie, is that a part of interior decorating?
Kitchens?”
“Surely!” smiled the sister. “We want to make it pleasant where we
have to work the most. Now let’s get these dishes out of the way
first, and then you children put on your oldest clothes, something
that won’t be hurt with the paint; and we’ll go to work.”
“You ought to have one of those ’lectric dish-washers, Nell,” said
Harry energetically, getting up with a pile of dishes and starting
toward the kitchen. “They got one down to the store on exhibition.
Say, it’s great! You just stick ’em in, and they come out all washed
and dried. I’ll buy you one some day when I get ahead a little.”
“Do,” said Cornelia warmly, smiling. “That would be wonderful!”
And so in the bustle and eagerness the disappointment over Carey
was somewhat forgotten. They all worked away happily together until
ten o’clock, painting and pounding and scrubbing; and, when they
finally put up the brushes and went to bed, the kitchen was in a fair
way toward reconstruction. The window-frames had lost their grimy,
years-old green paint under a first coat of white; the doors had
been sandpapered and primed; the side walls had been patched with
plaster-of-Paris and received a coat of shellac. Everything began to
look clean and hopeful.
“Aw, gee! Carey don’t know what he’s missin’,” mourned Harry as
he climbed reluctantly up the stairs, loath to leave till he had
finished all the first coat, and persuaded to bed by his sister only
on the ground that he wouldn’t want to get up in the morning.
For three days Carey stayed away without a sign, and for two evenings
Cornelia kept her family interested in the kitchen so that they did
not notice the locked parlor door.
It was a bit hard on Cornelia. She worked steadily all day, then
worked again all the evening, and lay awake most of the night
worrying about her brother. She was beginning to get dark circles
under her eyes, and her father looked at her anxiously and asked her
whether she didn’t think she was doing too much. But she managed to
smile cheerfully and keep a brave front. She knew by the weary little
wrinkles around his eyes that he too was lying awake nights, worrying
about Carey. But the kitchen was beginning to take on the look of a
lily, and was rapidly becoming a spot where the family loved to go
and gaze around, so transforming is a little white paint.
Later on the second afternoon Cornelia went to a telephone
pay-station, and looked among the B’s for Barlock. When she had found
it, she called up the one with the initials R. B., taking a chance
between that and Peter, Mary, Silas, and J. J., tremblingly put
in her nickel, and waited. It was a young girl’s voice, fresh and
snappy, that answered her; for she had called the residence and not
the business office; and she tried to control her voice and answer
calmly as she asked whether Mr. Brand Barlock was at home. The girl’s
voice at the other end was a trifle haughty as she answered: “No,
he’s motored down to Baltimore. I don’t know when he’ll be home.
Maybe two or three days. Who is this?”
“Oh,” said Cornelia a trifle relieved, “then I’ll call again,”
and hung up the receiver in the face of the repeated question,
“Who is this?” Her cheeks were glowing as she emerged from the
telephone-booth and hastened out to the street as if she were afraid
some one would chase her. That was likely Brand Barlock’s sister on
the telephone, and Cornelia had appeared to her like a bold girl
calling up her brother and then retreating without giving her name;
but it had been the only way. At least, she knew this much, that
Brand also was still away. Carey was likely safe; that is, probably
nothing had happened to his body, though there was no telling what
had happened to his soul on such a wild trip with such companions.
But the third day the carpenter took down the parlor partition, and
threw the hall and parlor into one; and Cornelia could no longer
conceal the interesting changes that had been going on within the old
front room.
There was a fine big window each side of the big fireplace hole, with
a box window-seat under it, and the little “bay” had been put into
the long, dark wall of the hallway, with a row of three diamond-paned
windows opening just over the staircase. Cornelia had managed to
conceal the first bay window, which had been put in the second day,
by means of an old curtain tacked across the wall. But, when the
third night came, there stood the big new room with all its windows,
a place of great possibilities.
“Now,” said the carpenter as he stood back and surveyed his finished
task, “there’s just two more things I’d like to see you do to this
room. You need to break that there staircase with a landin’ about
four steps up. You got plenty-a room this side yer dining-room door,
an’ ’twould jest strike them three winders fer the landin’. They got
a half-circle an’ two long, narrer side winders down to the shop
would jest fit around that there front door. Ef you say the word,
I’ll put ’em in tomorra. I jest about could do it in a day. But I’d
like to turn them stairs around. I certainly would.”
So with fear and trembling Cornelia told him to go ahead. He assured
her she needn’t worry about the pay, that his mother-in-law and
his two cousins’ wives all wanted curtains; and it began to look
as if she would be stencilling birds the rest of her natural life;
so she had no fear but she would be able to pay him sometime. She
was getting five dollars a set for her curtains, and felt quite
independent. Perhaps, after all, she would be an interior decorator
some day, even if this was a day of small things, scrim curtains
instead of rich fabrics and rare hangings.
That night, when the children came home, they discovered the changes
in the front part of the house, of course; and their sister found
them standing in awe on the stairs looking about them as if they had
suddenly stepped into a place of enchantment.
“O Nellie, Nellie, how did you do it?” they cried when they saw her.
“Isn’t this great? Isn’t it wonderful?” And then, with a look at the
yawning cavity in the floor where the fireplace was to be: “Oh what
will Carey say? Why doesn’t he come home?”
And that night after they were all in bed Carey came.
Even the children heard the car drive up to the door, and the whole
little shabby house seemed to be straining every alert nerve to
listen.
Carey came whistling a jazzy little tune up the path, with a careless
happy-go-lucky swag, not at all like the prodigal son that he was,
with the whole family in a long three days’ agony over him. It
was almost virtuous, that whistle and the way he subdued it as he
unlocked the dining-room door and groped his way through the dark
to where the foot of the stairs used to be. They heard him strike a
match; and then, as if they had all been down there to watch him,
they could visualize his amazed face as he stood in the little halo
of the match, and looked around him at the strange room, and the
strange staircase with a turn in the stairs and only one rail up yet,
and a platform. They heard him strike another match, and then they
heard his footsteps and more matches as he walked around looking.
Cornelia knew when he sighted the bay window and the seats under
the two windows by the fireplace. She heard the gentle thud of the
top as he opened it and closed it again. She heard the soft whistle
of approval, and drew a long breath of relief. At least he was
interested.
She knew that the little sister heard too and was following Carey’s
every movement; for she felt the quick grip of the little hand on
her shoulder, and the soft, tense breath against her cheek; and
somehow it gave her courage and strength. With all the family united
in loving anxiety for him, surely, _surely_ Carey would be saved and
made a good man. She found herself praying again: “O God, reach him,
save him, show him! Help us to know what to do for him.”
Afterwards she thought about it, and wondered at herself, and
resolved to pray regularly again, even if just to pray for Carey.
It was so necessary that Carey be saved and made a good man. It was
necessary just for their mother’s sake, and it must be done before
she came home, or she would be likely to get sick again worrying
about him.
Carey came slowly up the stairs, and went to his room. The family
listened to his movements overhead, listened for his shoes to fall,
and then to the creak of the springs as he at last got into bed.
Listened longer as the springs continued to creak while Carey rolled
around, settling himself—thinking, perhaps?—and then at last when all
was still they slept.
It was well for Carey that a night intervened between his home-coming
and the meeting with his family. The sharp words that swelled in
the heart of each of them, and would surely have arisen to the lips
of them, would not have been pleasant for him to hear. They might
have been salutary; they undoubtedly would have been true; but it is
exceedingly doubtful whether in his present state of mind he would
have endured them graciously. He had had a good time, and he had
come home. He was in no mood for fault-finding. The sight of the
unfinished fireplace in the wide desolation of the renovated and
enlarged room had given him a good-sized pang of remorse which was in
a fair way to stay with him for a day or so. Sharp words would most
certainly have dispelled it instantly and put him on the defensive.
To blame as he undoubtedly was, he preferred to blame himself rather
than to have his family do so; and the fact that he arose before
light, before any of the others were even awake, and descended to
the cellar quietly to pursue his interrupted work proved that he had
begun to apprehend the likelihood of blame and wished to forestall it.
It was Harry who awoke first, feeling rather than hearing the dull
thuds of the silent worker in the cellar. Hastily dressing, he stole
down in wonder and delight, and was so well pleased with what he saw
and with the most unusually cordial greeting from his elder brother
that he remained to help and not to blame. When Louise came down,
followed almost immediately by Cornelia, and found the two brothers
working so affably, with a whole row of stones reared in the parlor,
they gave one another a swift, understanding glance, and greeted
their brothers collectively and joyously as if nothing had happened
for the last four days.
Carey rattled off jokes, and worked away like a beaver, keeping
them all in roars of laughter; and the father, waking late from his
troubled sleep, heard the festive sound, and hurried down, relieved
that the cloud of gloom had lifted from his home. He had had it in
mind to give Carey a regular dressing down when he returned. Words
fitly framed for such a proceeding had been forming red-hot in his
worried mind all night. But the sight of his four children in gales
of laughter over some silly little story Carey had told, and the
sight of the clock hastening on to the moment of his car, restrained
him; and perhaps it was just as well. Cornelia hurried him into his
place, and gave him his breakfast, chattering all the time about the
rooms and the changes, and so kept his mind busy. At last they all
got away without a word of reproof to Carey, and Cornelia was left to
wonder whether she ought to open the subject.
All the morning they worked eagerly together, finding personal
conversation impossible because of the presence of the carpenter.
At lunch time, however, Carey, having been most courteous and
apologetic, seemed to feel his time had come. Or perhaps he
appreciated his sister’s silence. At any rate, he remarked quite
casually that he had been out for a job in Baltimore, and hadn’t got
it, worse luck! Missed the man he went to see by half an hour, but
had a dandy time.
Cornelia took the news quietly, thoughtfully, and presently raised
her eyes.
“Carey, dear, next time you go wouldn’t you be good enough to tell us
where you are going and how long you expect to be gone? You’ve given
us all an extremely anxious time, you know.”
She managed to make her voice quiet and matter-of-fact, without
the least bit of fault-finding; for a black cloud hovered almost
imperceptibly over the handsome young brows across the table, and
she had no mind to spoil the pleasant atmosphere that had surrounded
them all the morning.
“The idea!” said Carey, excited at once. “Why should I do that? I’m
not a baby, am I? I’m a _man_, ain’t I? Disabuse yourself at once of
the notion that I’m in leading-strings. I guess I can go as far as I
like, and stay as long as I like, can’t I?”
“Yes, you can, of course,” soothed his sister. “But, if you really
are a man, you’ve noticed how gray and worn father looks. How sick he
looks! He’s been through a lot, you know; and he can’t help thinking
that maybe something else dreadful is coming. He has to worry for
himself and mother too, you know. Because just now everything is
very critical on mother’s account. I know you wouldn’t want to worry
mother, and you wouldn’t want to worry father, either, if you just
stopped to think.”
“Well, but how absurd! A trip down to Baltimore that any fella would
take. You aren’t such a goose as to worry over that, are you?”
“Of course it is a bit silly,” admitted the sister; “but I must
confess I lay awake several hours every night myself. You remember
you had just got done telling me what a wild driver that Brand
Barlock is, and how he put ether in the mixture. And one can’t help
knowing there are hundreds of terrible automobile accidents every
day. They might happen even to a _man_, you know; and then—well we
_love_ you, Carey, you know.”
“Oh, gosh! Well, I didn’t know you were that sort of a goose. I know
of course mother—but then she isn’t here.”
“Well, when it comes down to it, Carey I guess we all care about as
much as mother.” She smiled at him through a sudden mist of tears
that all unexpectedly welled into her eyes. “And you know it was
quite sudden, and well, if you had just thought to telephone, you
know, to say you would be gone several days.”
“Aw, gee! Well, I suppose I might have done that. I will next time.
Sure, Nell, I’ll try to remember. It was kind of rank in me not to
say anything, but I figured that, if I didn’t get it, no one would be
the wiser.”
“Well, I guess you can’t cheat your family.” She smiled again,
ignoring the mist in her eyes. “We’re a kind of gang together; isn’t
that what you call it? And what affects one affects all. Why, even
little Louie cried herself to sleep in my arms last night because she
thought maybe you had been killed.”
“Aw! Gee!”
Carey got up swiftly, and went over to the window, where he gazed out
at the neighbor’s blank wall until he had control of himself; then he
turned with one of his lightning smiles.
“All right, Nell, I’ll give you the tip next time. I’m sorry I had to
stay so long, but I waited for the man. See?”
“Well, Carey, I suppose you thought that was the right thing to do,
but I’ve been wondering since you’ve been talking whether there isn’t
something good for you in all this big city where we live without
going away to Baltimore.”
“I’d like to see it,” gloomily answered the boy, with a sudden grim
look in his eyes. “I’ve tried everything I heard of.”
“Well, it will come,” said his sister brightly. “Come, let’s get this
house finished first, and then we’ll be ready for the big position
you’re going to have. Next week, you know, you’ve got to go back to
the garage and earn that suit. You need it badly.”
Carey caught her suddenly, and gave her a bear-hug, and then spun
her around the room till she was dizzy; and so, happily, they went
back to their work, Cornelia wondering whether she had done right to
pass the matter off so lightly. But brother, as he worked away at his
stones silently, was thinking more seriously on the error of his ways
than he had thought for four years past.