Lo, Michael!

by Grace Livingston Hill

It had long been in Michael’s heart to build over the old house—for what he did not know. Certainly he had no hope of ever using it himself except as a transitory dwelling; yet it pleased his fancy to have it as he dreamed it out. Perhaps some day it might be needed for some supreme reason, and now was the time to get it ready. So one day he took a great and simple-hearted architect down to the place to stay over night and get an idea of the surroundings; and a few weeks later he was in possession of a plan that showed how the old house could be made into a beautiful new house, and yet keep all the original outlines. The carpenter, pleased with the prospect of doing something really fine, had undertaken the work and it was going forward rapidly.

The main walls were to be built around with stone, old stone bought from the ruins of a desolated barn of forgotten years, stone that was rusty and golden and green in lovely mellow tones; stone that was gray with age and mossy in place; now and then a stone that was dead black to give strength to the coloring of the whole. There were to be windows, everywhere, wide, low windows, that would let the sunlight in; and windows that nestled in the sloping, rambling roofs that were to be stained green like the moss that would grow on them some day. There was to be a piazza across the entire front with rough stone pillars, and a stone paved floor up to which the orchard grass would grow in a gentle terrace. Even now Sam and his helpers were at work starting rose vines of all varieties, to train about the trellises and twine about the pillars. Sam had elected that it should be called “Rose Cottage.” Who would have ever suspected Sam of having any poetry in his nature?

The great stone fireplace with its ancient crane and place to sit inside was to be retained, and built about with more stone, and the partitions between the original sitting-room and dining-room and hall were to be torn down, to make one splendid living-room of which the old fireplace should be the centre, with a great window at one side looking toward the sea, and a deep seat with book cases in the corner. Heavy beams were somehow to be put in the ceiling to support it, and fine wood used in the wainscoting and panelling, with rough soft-toned plaster between and above. The floors were to be smooth, wide boards of hard wood well fitted.

A little gable was to be added on the morning-side of the house for a dining-room, all windows, with a view of the sea on one side and the river on the other. Upstairs there would be four bedrooms and a bath-room, all according to the plan to be white wainscoting half-way up and delicately vined or tinted papers above.

Michael took great pleasure in going down to look at the house, and watching the progress that was made with it, as indeed the whole colony did. They called it “The Boss’s Cottage,” and when they laid off work at night always took a trip to see what had been done during the day, men, women and children. It was a sort of sacred pilgrimage, wherein they saw their own highest dreams coming true for the man they loved because he had helped them to a future of possibilities. Not a man of them but wistfully wondered if he would ever get to the place where he could build him a house like that, and resolved secretly to try for it; and always the work went better the next day for the visit to the shrine.

But after all, Michael would turn from his house with an empty ache in his heart. What was it for? Not for him. It was not likely he would ever spend happy hours there. He was not like other men. He must take his happiness in making others happy.

But one day a new thought came to him, as he watched the laborers working out the plan, and bringing it ever nearer and nearer to the perfect whole. A great desire came to him to have Starr see it some day, to know what she would think about it, and if she would like it. The thought occurred to him that perhaps, some time, in the changing of the world, she might chance near that way, and he have opportunity to show her the house that he had built—for her! Not that he would ever tell her that last. She must never know of course that she was the only one in all the world he could ever care for. That would seem a great presumption in her eyes. He must keep that to himself. But there would be no harm in showing her the house, and he would make it now as beautiful as if she were to occupy it. He would take his joy in making all things fair, with the hope that she might one day see and approve it.

So, as the work drew near its completion he watched it more and more carefully, matching tints in rooms, and always bringing down some new idea, or finding some particular bit of furniture that would some day fit into a certain niche. In that way he cheated the lonely ache in his heart, and made believe he was happy.

And another winter drew its white mantle about its shoulders and prepared to face the blast.

It bade fair to be a bitter winter for the poor, for everything was high, and unskilled labor was poorly paid. Sickness and death were abroad, and lurked in the milk supply, the food supply, the unsanitary tenements about the alley; which, because it had not been so bad as some other districts had been left uncondemned. Yet it was bad enough, and Michael’s hands were full to keep his people alive, and try to keep some of them from sinning. For always where there is misery, there is the more sinning.