CHAPTER XVIII—THE HOUSE WITH THE SHINGLED FRONT
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.