CHAPTER XXII
Carey had been working quite steadily at the garage and giving money to his father and Cornelia every week. It really made things much easier in the home. Word had come that the mother was steadily progressing toward health, and everybody was much happier. It seemed that Carey was happier, too. He was not away so much at night, which relieved his sister and his father tremendously.
Nothing had been said about Clytie Dodd. Carey had thanked his sister for the party and for taking so much trouble to make a pleasant evening, but he utterly ignored the presence of the girl who had been the cause of the whole affair. It was as if she had not been there. Mr. Copley had asked as he sat down to dinner the next evening after the birthday: “Where did you pick up that queer Dodd girl you had here?” and Cornelia had answered quite casually, as if it didn’t matter at all, “Oh, she was just a girl I thought perhaps we ought to know,” and slipped back into the kitchen to get the potatoes just as Carey entered the dining-room. He must have heard the conversation, and heard his father’s reply: “Well, I guess she’s not quite our sort, is she? I guess we can get along without her, can’t we?”—he made no comment, and began to talk at once eagerly about the new stone porch he was going to build. It appeared that he had discovered a lot of stone that was being dug from the street where they were putting down new paving, and it was to be had for little more than the carting away. Pat would let him have his truck at night, and he was going to bring the first load that very evening. Brand was coming around to help. Brand wanted to have a hand in the building.
Brand appeared soon after, coming breezily out to the dining-room without an invitation and sitting down for a piece of lemon pie as if he were a privileged friend of long standing. There was nothing backward about Brand. Yet somehow they all liked him, and Cornelia could see that Carey was pleased that they did. She felt a glow of thankfulness in her heart that it was possible to like one of Carey’s friends when the other one was so unspeakably impossible.
Brand took off his coat, and put on an old sweater of Carey’s; and they went off together after the truck. In a little while they were back with the first load of cobblestones, and worked till long after dark, load after load, piling them neatly between the sidewalk and the curb, till they had a goodly lot. Brand seemed as interested in that porch as if it were his own. After they took the truck back Brand came in again, and wanted to sing. They sang for nearly an hour; and, when he left, Cornelia felt as if they had fully taken over Brand as a part of their little circle. She couldn’t help wondering what his society mother and elegant sister would say if they knew where he had spent the last two evenings. Then she reflected that there were much worse places where he might spend them, and probably often did; and she began to take Brand into her thoughts and plans for the future with almost the same anxious care as she gave to Carey. Brand was a nice boy, and needed helping. He was too young to spend his time running around with girls like Clytie Dodd and taking joy rides with a gay crowd. She would make their little home a haven where Carey and his friends would at least be safe and happy. She could not give them anything elaborate in the way of entertainment; but there should always be a welcome, plenty of music, and something to eat.
Cornelia could see her father visibly brighten day by day as the week went by, and Carey seemed to stick to his task and spend his evenings at home. Brand had bought a pair of overalls and made blisters on his hands digging for the foundation of the stone porch; and every afternoon Carey came home from the garage at five o’clock and worked away with a will.
At this rate it did not take long for the wall to rise. It was level with the front door-step now, and Carey had put a plank across and a few stones for steps to go up and down.
It was late on Thursday afternoon, and Carey was hard at work trying to finish the front wall before dark. Brand’s racing-car was standing by the curb with the engine throbbing, and Brand himself was standing with one foot on the wall talking to Carey.
Cornelia had just come out with a plate of hot gingerbread for them, and was standing a moment watching them enjoy it when another car suddenly came down the hill and stopped in the road just in front of Brand’s car. A wriggling child in the front seat peered out curiously from beside the driver, and Cornelia had a glimpse of a fretful elderly woman’s face in the back seat. Then the door on the driver’s side of the car was opened and some one got out and came around. She hadn’t thought of its being Maxwell until he was in full view, and a soft flush came into her cheeks with the welcome light in her eyes.
“Come in and have a piece of hot gingerbread!” she called, holding out the plate.