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THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT
BOOKS BY
WILL N. HARBEN
THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT
THE HILLS OF REFUGE
THE TRIUMPH
ABNER DANIEL
ANN BOYD
THE DESIRED WOMAN
DIXIE HART
THE GEORGIANS
GILBERT NEAL
THE INNER LAW
JANE DAWSON
KENNETH GALT
MAM' LINDA
THE NEW CLARION
PAUL RUNDEL
POLE BAKER
SECOND CHOICE
THE SUBSTITUTE
WESTERFELT
* * * * *
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]
[Illustration]
THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT
A NOVEL
BY
WILL N. HARBEN
_Author of "Ann Boyd," "Abner Daniel,"
"The Triumph," "The Hills of Judgment," etc._
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Copyright 1919, by Harper & Brothers
PART I
CHAPTER I
John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the
mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow
whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills
half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle
had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil.
The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted a dingy oil-lamp with a
cracked and smoked chimney, and in its dim glow drew on his coarse
lime-and-mortar-splotched shirt and overalls. The cheap cotton socks he
put on had holes at the heels and toes; his leather belt had broken and
was tied with a piece of twine; his shoes were quite new and furnished
an odd contrast to the rest of his attire.
He was young, under twenty, and rather tall. He was slender, but his
frame was sinewy. He had no beard as yet, and his tanned face was
covered with down. His hair was coarse and had a tendency to stand erect
and awry. He had blue eyes, a mouth inclined to harshness, a manner
somewhat brusk and impatient. To many he appeared absent-minded.
Suddenly, as he sat tying his shoes, he heard a clatter of pans in the
kitchen down-stairs, and he paused to listen. "I wonder," he thought,
"if that brat is cooking breakfast again. She must be, for neither one
of those women would be out of bed as early as this. It was three
o'clock when they came in."
Blowing out his light, he groped from the room into the dark passage
outside, and descended the old creaking stairs to the hall below. The
front door was open, and he sniffed angrily. "They didn't even lock it.
They must have been drunk again. Well, that's their business, not mine."
The kitchen was at the far end of the hall and he turned into it. It was
almost filled with smoke. A little girl stood at the old-fashioned
range, putting sticks of wood in at the door. She was about nine years
of age, wore a cast-off dress, woman's size, and was barefooted. She had
good features, her eyes were blue, her hair abundant and golden, her
hands, now splotched with smut, were small and slender. She was not a
relative of John's, being the orphaned niece of Miss Jane Holder, who
shared the house with John's mother, who was a widow.
The child's name was Dora Boyles, and she smiled in chagrin as he stared
down on her in the lamplight and demanded:
"Say, say, what's this--trying to smoke us to death?"
"I made a mistake," the child faltered. "The damper in the pipe was
turned wrong, and while I was on the back porch, mixing the
biscuit-dough, it smoked before I knew it. It will stop now. You see it
is drawing all right."
With an impatient snort, he threw open the two windows in the room and
opened the outer door, standing aside and watching the blue smoke trail
out, cross the porch floor, and dissolve in the grayish light of dawn.
"The biscuits are about done," Dora said. "The coffee water has boiled
and I'm going to fry the eggs and meat. The pan is hot and it won't take
long."
"I was going to get a bite at the restaurant," he answered, in a
mollified tone.
"But you said the coffee was bad down there and the bread stale," Dora
argued, as she dropped some slices of bacon into the pan. "And once you
said the place was not open and you went to work without anything. I
might as well do this. I can't sleep after the whistle blows. Your ma
and Aunt Jane waked me when they came in. They were awfully lively. The
fellows were singing and cursing and throwing bottles across the street.
Aunt Jane could hardly get up the stairs and had one of her laughing
spells. I think your ma was sober, for I could hear her talking steady
and scolding Aunt Jane about taking a dance from her with some man or
other. Did you see the men? They were the same two that had 'em out last
Friday night, the big one your ma likes and the one Aunt Jane says is
hers. I heard your ma say they were horse-traders from Kentucky, and
have lots and lots of money to spend. That jewelry drummer--do you
remember, that gave me the red pin?--he sent them with a note of
introduction. The pin was no good. The shine is already off of
it--wasn't even washed with gold."
John was scarcely heeding what she said. He had taken a piece of paper
from his pocket, and with a brick-layer's flat pencil was making some
calculations in regard to a wall he was building. The light was
insufficient at the door and he was now bending over the table near the
lamp.
"Do you want me to make you some flour-and-cream gravy?" she asked,
ignorant of his desire to be undisturbed. "The milk looks good and rich
this morning."
"No, no!" And he swore under his breath. "Don't you see I'm figuring?
Now I'll have to add up again."
She made the gravy, anyway. She took out the fried bacon, sprinkled
flour in the brown grease, stirred the mixture vigorously, and then
there was a great sizzling as she added a cup of milk, and, in a cloud
of fragrant steam, still stood stirring. "There," she said, more to
herself than to him. "I'm going to pour it over the bacon. It is better
that way."
He had finished his figuring and now turned to her. "Are your biscuits
done?" he asked. "I think I smell them."
"Just about," she answered, and she threw open the door of the oven,
and, holding the hot pan with the long skirt of her dress, she drew it
out. "Good! Just right!" she chuckled. "Now, where do you want to
eat--here or in the dining-room? The table is set in there. Come on. You
bring the coffee-pot."
Still absently, for his thoughts were on his figures, he followed her
into the adjoining room. It was a bare-looking place, in the dim light
of the lamp which she placed in the center of the small, square table
with its red cloth, for there was no furniture but three or four chairs,
a tattered strip of carpeting, and an old-fashioned safe with perforated
tin panels. Two windows with torn Holland shades and dirty cotton
curtains looked out on the side yard. Beneath the shades the yellowing
glow of approaching sunlight appeared; a sort of fog hovered over
everything outside and its dampness had crept within, moistening the
table-cloth and chairs. John poured his own coffee while standing, and
Dora went to bring the other things. His mind was busy over the work he
was to do. Certain stone sills must be placed exactly right in the
brickwork, a new scaffold had to be erected, and he wondered if the
necessary timbers had arrived from the sawmill which his employer,
Cavanaugh, had promised to have delivered the night before in order that
the work might not be delayed. John sat down. He burnt his lips with the
hot coffee, and then pouring some of it into his saucer, he drank it in
that awkward fashion.
"How is it?" Dora inquired. "Is it strong enough?" She was putting down
a dish containing the fried things and eyed his face anxiously.
"Yes, it is all right," he said. "Hurry, will you? Give me something to
eat. I can't stay here all day." He took a hot biscuit and buttered it
and began to eat it like a sandwich. She pushed the dish toward him and
sat down, her hands in her lap, watching his movements with the stare of
a faithful dog.
"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was
dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and
bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much
paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big
hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and
said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would
really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come
just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink
together. Then they all laughed and cut up."
"Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them.
Can't you talk about something else?"
"I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in
addressing him. "I wasn't thinking."
"Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he
retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all
I make--I know that well enough--and half the time they keep me awake at
night when I'm tired out."
She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had
clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began
to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she
mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at
it, and you have a fight on your hands."
Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for
dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard
and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the
stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her
stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling
down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of
former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray
eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow.
"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is
fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making
a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed
that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir--a sort of
nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to
see me?"
"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow
did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date
with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I
told him it was none of his business."
"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with
coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from
her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who
we went off with, did you?"
"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane
would like some coffee before she gets up?"
"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head!
My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain
would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any
last week."
"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You
know he doesn't talk much."
Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the
stairway and went up to her room.