“No, she told me very little, but old doctors guess a great deal. She will tell you herself some day.”
He went on to explain that a sleeping-porch must be added to the cabin, since it was imperative that she sleep out of doors.
“I spoke about it to John Herrick and he can send some one over to build it for you,” he said. “Old Tim who works for him is a carpenter of sorts, though he is rather tottery and slow and you must not be impatient if the work seems to drag. Now I believe that is all.”
“I wish I could tell you——” Beatrice began as he got up. She wanted to thank him for breaking out of his long retirement and rendering services for which he would accept no fee. He cut short her halting words at once.
“I don’t want to hear anything about that,” he declared. “Just be careful of your aunt and get her confidence if you can. I will be here again before so very long. That situation in the village bears watching and I want to see how it turns out. I never saw anything quite like it—all the idle men wrangling and quarreling, since there is no one outside to quarrel with. The fellow that got away with the money and shut down the works, he is the one they are after, but since neither they nor the sheriff nor that clever reporter fellow can find him, they have to take out their bad humor on one another. It is a dangerous place, a town full of ugly-tempered men, especially when they have some one like that Thorvik to keep the agitation boiling.”
“But who could have taken the money?” asked Nancy.
“Blessed if I know,” returned the doctor. “There wasn’t even a masked man with a black horse and a pair of automatics such as the movies tell us belong to an affair like that. Well, I must be getting back to Miriam. Good-by.”
He clambered, with his awkward length, into the saddle, and set off, leaving the girls much lighter of heart than they had been before his visit. It would be hard to measure the extent of their gratitude.
Next day old Tim, with his tools over his shoulder and a creaking wagon-load of lumber following him up to the gate, came to begin on the sleeping-porch. It was quite true that he worked very slowly and that after ten days the porch was still not finished, but his efforts to make everything as comfortable as possible were so earnest that the girls could not grow impatient with him. At the end of that time he appeared one morning with a helper, a broad-shouldered boy of about eighteen with tow-colored hair and the widest and most friendly smile Beatrice had ever seen.
“Who is he? Did he come from the village?” she asked, but old Tim answered evasively. He was just some one staying at John Herrick’s for a while, and he thought he would come over and help. Beyond that she could learn nothing, although she noticed that when supplies were wanted from Ely it was always old Tim who went for them, never his younger helper. The boy worked hard and was as shy of speech as Tim was fluent. After his coming the building went on rapidly. All sorts of improvements were added besides the porch. Cupboards in the kitchen had been demanded by Nancy, but they had not dreamed of dormer-windows for their little rooms under the roof, high-backed settles for the fireplace, and a palatial box stall for Buck. The request “for a few shelves for pots and kettles” was materialized into a spacious pantry rich in cupboards, shelves, drawers, and pegs for the hanging of each utensil and into a transformed kitchen with everything rearranged to the great increase of comfort and convenience.