The work on the new building went on apace. John was always tired when
night came, but a new expectation at the end of each day had come into
his hitherto uneventful life. It was not often that he saw Tilly alone,
but he had come to look forward eagerly even for the mere sight of her
in the evening, at the supper-table, on the veranda, or in the yard with
the others. Both he and Cavanaugh immediately changed their clothing
when the day's work was over, and this formality was a new and pleasant
thing for the young mason. The change always made him feel more
respectable. It gave him the sense of throwing off the grime and toil of
the day. It was the first ordering of his life on any social plane, and
it charmed him.
"You are certainly a wonder," the old man remarked to him one afternoon
as they were dressing in John's room.
"In what way?" John asked, curiously.
"Why, you are different, that's all"--the contractor laughed--"as
different from what you used to be down at home as night from day. You
used to have a grouch on you nearly all the time, but now you are as
pleasing as a basket of chips. Your mind seems brighter. You often say
funny things, and you ain't as rough with the boys that work under you
as you used to be. If they are a little slow with brick or mortar you
don't fuss so much, and--say--you have mighty nigh quit cursing. I'm
glad of that, too, I must say I am, for taking the Lord's name in vain
never helped a man get ahead. You see it is a slap in the face to so
many well-meaning folks. Gee! ain't we having a fine time? It is about
as hard to understand myself as to understand you--I mean this
combination picnic and hard labor we are at. There is one point about it
that I wouldn't dare tell my wife. By gum! I don't know that I'm ready
to admit it even to myself yet, but it is a queer notion."
"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening
to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work.
"Why"--the old man stared gravely as he answered--"it is a fact that I
don't miss Mandy at all--hardly at all, and it has set me
wondering--wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid
and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't
miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five
this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it
may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be--well, almost too
well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible."
"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new
cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds.
"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John.
A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing
exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a
sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I
was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up
here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best
suit, brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and
have a good free evening of it. And I sleep--I'll admit it--I even sleep
sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open,
you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if
she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I
don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the--the very
worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair
deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with
a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both
sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of
married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I
sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She
sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and
was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch
her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped
from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live
without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow and calf which she
was afraid I wouldn't feed--and, I don't know, maybe--me. And that's
what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are
washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All
that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of
his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't
predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day
and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of
glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like
the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let
anything I say about marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is
the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow
miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm
alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be
with all the time."