When the child had gone, Dutton untied the pads from his knees and
approached his mistress. The wind had wrecked the frail framework
which he had constructed of lath and the refuse from David Trench’s
shop, to support the rank growth of tomato vines, over there by the
wall. He admitted, shamefacedly, that he “knowed them end supports was
too weak,” when he put them in. He wondered if Mrs. Ascott would mind
helping him. Mrs. Dutton was in a bad humour, on account of some words
she had had with Mrs. Trench. And Nanny was no good for carpenter work.
“I’m not much of a carpenter--”
“Oh, it ain’t work. It’s just that Nanny’s feet’s too big. She gets in
the way. I thought I might call Dave over to he’p me; but he’s been out
in the shop runnin’ the scroll saw for dear life, since right after
breakfast. The old boy’s goin’ through his hells again. I tell you,
ma’am, it’s an awful mistake to call a girl ‘Vine’ and then give her
no mind to cling. When she’s in one o’ her tantrums, she wouldn’t see
the Lord Jesus Christ if she met Him in the middle of the road--and she
sets a heap o’ store by the Lord.”
There was only one way to handle Jeff Dutton. An open rebuke was
invariably followed by a day of insolent idleness. Mrs. Ascott had
heard him quarrel with Lavinia Trench in a manner to indicate that
one of them, at least, had not forgotten their former state of social
equality. The pointed ignoring of his familiar gossip usually proved
efficacious. He followed his mistress to the loamy bed in the sheltered
angle between the garage and the wall, where downy leaved vines and
splintered lath lay in a hopeless tangle on the ground. A while they
worked, side by side, the sullen silence broken only by the whirring
of David’s saw. Judith’s fingers were verde and odorous, and the hem
of her skirt was adorned with a batik pattern of grotesque figures in
the harmonious hues of earth and vine. Nanny would scold. But what was
the good of a garden, if one must only be a disinterested onlooker?
Suddenly Dutton yelled:
“There! Grab ’er quick! This end--can’t you see?”
The next moment he offered profuse apology. But his mistress was ready
for the emergency. It was necessary for him to go into the garage and
cut another support to take the place of the one that had snapped.
“Better put this ’ere pad on the ground, under your right foot, while
you hold ’er up. Them slippers is mighty thin. I won’t be gone a
minute.”