|THE Fates kept Hunch from getting to Liddington again during the
autumn, so he took to writing letters. He could not write what he would
have said; his letters were stilted little notes, usually beginning
with a phrase he had picked up from the office correspondence, “Yours
of recent date is just at hand,” or “Replying to yours of recent date,”
etc. Mamie wrote as impersonally, and through the autumn and on into
the winter their letters told of nothing but incidental doings and
happenings; but both were conscious of the sentiment that lay behind the
effort of writing.
On the first day of December, when navigation on the lakes was closed,
Hunch left the _Lucy Jackson_ in her berth at the lumber wharf. For some
weeks he had been thinking over a plan which he was now ready to carry
out. He got Mr. Jackson to take a walk with him at noon, and they went
up the river and looked at a piece of land. Mr. Jackson thought it would
do, and on the next day it belonged to Hunch. He paid cash for it.
Through the winter months he was busy building a house. The plans came
from an old copy of an architect's journal. Mr. Jackson sold him the
lumber at inside rates, and Hunch rafted it up himself during a few
days of open water. Bill Anderson, a carpenter whom he had known on
the Liddington elevator, was hired, and together they built the house.
Later, Hunch had to hire a plumber and a plasterer, but even after these
expenses something was left of his year's earnings.
When January had come, and Hunch had not gone down to Liddington, Mamie
could not help letting him see that she missed him. Once she wrote that
she “guessed he didn't remember old friends very well.” Hunch sat up
half of one night reading the letter, but gave her no hint except that
maybe he had a “little surprise” of his own.
The house fronted on the river. It was a story-and-a-half high, with
four rooms and a hall on the ground floor and two small rooms upstairs.
There was a grate in the front room, big enough for chunks of wood. The
veranda extended the full width of the house. It would be a good place
to sit evenings, when it was not too cold. The big white sand-hill that
looked down on one side of the house may have been bleak enough, but
Hunch had been brought up among sand-hills, and he liked it. It had a
round bald top, and every morning during the summer the sun would strike
it early and make it glisten. Hunch thought that maybe he would set out
a few peach trees in the side yard some day.
It was on the twenty-seventh of February, a Saturday, that Hunch and
Bill put the last brush of paint on the house. They sat down to rest on
a saw-buck in the front yard, where they could admire the wide veranda
and the shingled front.
“Who's going to live here, now she's done?” asked Bill.
“I am.” Hunch grinned.
“All alone?”
Hunch grew serious. The sense of achievement that had come with the
building of the house had overbalanced his doubt about Mamie. He grew
more serious, and paid no attention to Bill's questions.
They were cleaning up the brushes out in the woodshed, when Hunch
suddenly pulled out his watch.
“Bill,” he said, “you fix things up. I've got to go.”
He caught a trolley car. At his room he hurriedly put on his good suit
and white shirt. Then he ran for the station. At six-thirty he was in
Liddington.
After supper at the hotel he walked up to Mamie's house. He had started
out coolly, but suddenly, as he opened the gate, his strength seemed to
leave him. He had reached the great moment of his life, and he vaguely
knew it. He was so nervous that his hand was shaking when he knocked,
and the things about him looked unnatural.
Mamie was nervous too; and though she talked easily enough for a while,
and scolded Hunch because he had not been to see her all winter, she
hardly knew what she was saying. Then came a time when neither had
anything to say, and they sat for a long time without a word. Hunch's
eyebrows were drawn together, almost fiercely.
“Say,” he finally got out, “will you do something for me?”
“Why--I'll do anything I can.”
“Well, I guess you can, all right. I want you to come up to Manistee
with me to-morrow morning.”
“Why--” she stammered, “I can't say now--it isn't----?”
“No,” said Hunch, “you don't have to say nothing. I just want to show
you something. We can be back before night.”
Mamie looked relieved.
“What is it?” she asked slowly.
“Nothing much--I ain't going to tell just yet. You'll come, won't you?”
“Why, I don't know------”
“Won't you?”
Mamie looked at him, hesitated, then laughed nervously, and nodded. She
was a little frightened. Hunch grew almost boisterous in a sudden flow
of good spirits, and he went away without a word which would make her
understand.
They took the morning train. Mamie was herself again, and they appeared
as quite a sober pair. Hunch, however, grew nervous as they came into
Manistee. He hurried her into a trolley car, and sat stiff and silent
while they skirted the flat shore of the lake and river. Finally, they
got out and walked across the sand to a newly painted cottage next to a
sand-hill.
Hunch looked at the house, and then at Mamie. She was puzzled,
“Well,” he said, “how do you like it?”
“What?” she said, though her eyes showed that she was beginning to
understand.
“That there--the house. It's yours. I made it for you.” He was so
excited that he was raising his voice.
“S--sh,” said Mamie, “somebody'll hear you.”
Then she looked for a long time at the house. Hunch watched her, but she
would not meet his eyes. She walked slowly up the yard, balancing on the
planks that were laid on the sand. She rested a foot on the first step,
and slowly looked around. There were tears in her eyes.
Hunch gripped her hand tightly.
“Oh, John,” she faltered; but this time she did not say that she was
sorry.