Sanford forgot Jack’s roses, and with a quick movement of his hand drew the curtains of his bedroom and disappeared inside. The letter was there. He seldom came home from any journey without finding one of these little missives to greet him. He broke the seal and was about to read the contents when the major’s cheery, buoyant voice was heard in the outside room. The next instant he had pushed the curtains aside and peered in.
“Where is he, Sam? In here, did you say?”
Not to have been able to violate the seclusion of Sanford’s bedroom at all times, night or day, would have grievously wounded the sensibilities of the distinguished Pocomokian; it would have implied a reflection on the closeness of their friendship. It was true he had met Sanford but half a dozen times, and it was equally true that he had never before crossed the threshold of this particular room. But these trifling drawbacks, mere incidental stages in a rapidly growing friendship, were immaterial to him.
“My dear boy,” he cried, as he entered the room with arms wide open, “but it does my heart good to see you!” and he hugged Sanford enthusiastically, patting his host’s back with his fat hands over the spot where the suspenders crossed. Then he held him at arm’s length.
“Let me look at you. Splendid, by gravy! fresh as a rose, suh, handsome as a picture! Just a trace of care under the eyes, though. I see the nights of toil, the hours of suffering. I wonder the brain of man can stand it. But the building of a lighthouse, the illumining of a pathway in the sea for those buffeting with the waves,—it is gloriously humane, suh!”
Suddenly his manner changed, and in a tone as grave and serious as if he were full partner in the enterprise and responsible for its success, the major laid his hand, this time confidingly, on Sanford’s shirt-sleeve, and said, “How are we getting on at the Ledge, suh? Last time we talked it over, we were solving the problem of a colossal mass of—of—some stuff or other that”—
“Concrete,” suggested Sanford, with an air as serious as that of the major. He loved to humor him.
“That’s it,—concrete; the name had for the moment escaped me,—concrete, suh, that was to form the foundation of the lighthouse.”
Sanford assured the major that the concrete was being properly amalgamated, and discussed the laying of the mass in the same technical terms he would have used to a brother engineer, smiling meanwhile as the stream of the Pocomokian’s questions ran on. He liked the major’s glow and sparkle. He enjoyed most of all the never ending enthusiasm of the man,—that spontaneous outpouring which, like a bubbling spring, flows unceasingly, and always with the coolest and freshest water of the heart.
“And how is Miss Shirley?” asked the young engineer, throwing the inquiry into the shallows of the talk as a slight temporary dam.