Later on he repeated the operation and made room for a hand saw, an auger, a plane, and a hatchet; also a smoking-jacket she had given him, and a lot of paper dolls Phoebe had left 192 behind. (Late that night, after the lights were out, he remembered the framed motto, “God Bless Our Home,” which his dear old mother had worked for him in yarns of variegated hues while they were honeymooning in Blakeville. The home was very cold and still, and the floor was strewn with nails, but he got out of bed and put the treasure in the top tray of the trunk.)
Along about four in the afternoon he experienced a sensation of uneasiness—even alarm. It began to look as if the workmen would have the entire job completed by nightfall. In considerable trepidation he accosted the foreman.
“If it’s just the same to you I’d rather you wouldn’t pack the beds until to-morrow—that is, of course, if you are coming back to-morrow.”
“Maybe we’ll get around to ’em and maybe we won’t,” said the foreman, carelessly. “We’ve got to pack the kitchen things to-morrow and the china.”
“You see, it’s this way,” said Harvey. “I’ve got to sleep somewhere!”
“I see,” said the foreman, and went on with his work, leaving Harvey in doubt. 193
“Have a cigar?” he asked, after a doleful pause. The man took it and looked at it keenly.
“I’ll smoke it after a while,” he said.
“Do the best you can about the bed in the back room upstairs,” said Harvey, engagingly.
An express wagon came at five o’clock and removed the servants’ trunks. A few minutes later the two domestics, be-hatted and cloaked, came up to say good-bye to him.