Re-creations

by Grace Livingston Hill

“O Nellie, Nellie, how did you do it?” they cried when they saw her. “Isn’t this great? Isn’t it wonderful?” And then, with a look at the yawning cavity in the floor where the fireplace was to be: “Oh what will Carey say? Why doesn’t he come home?”

And that night after they were all in bed Carey came.

Even the children heard the car drive up to the door, and the whole little shabby house seemed to be straining every alert nerve to listen.

Carey came whistling a jazzy little tune up the path, with a careless happy-go-lucky swag, not at all like the prodigal son that he was, with the whole family in a long three days’ agony over him. It was almost virtuous, that whistle and the way he subdued it as he unlocked the dining-room door and groped his way through the dark to where the foot of the stairs used to be. They heard him strike a match; and then, as if they had all been down there to watch him, they could visualize his amazed face as he stood in the little halo of the match, and looked around him at the strange room, and the strange staircase with a turn in the stairs and only one rail up yet, and a platform. They heard him strike another match, and then they heard his footsteps and more matches as he walked around looking. Cornelia knew when he sighted the bay window and the seats under the two windows by the fireplace. She heard the gentle thud of the top as he opened it and closed it again. She heard the soft whistle of approval, and drew a long breath of relief. At least he was interested.

She knew that the little sister heard too and was following Carey’s every movement; for she felt the quick grip of the little hand on her shoulder, and the soft, tense breath against her cheek; and somehow it gave her courage and strength. With all the family united in loving anxiety for him, surely, surely Carey would be saved and made a good man. She found herself praying again: “O God, reach him, save him, show him! Help us to know what to do for him.”

Afterwards she thought about it, and wondered at herself, and resolved to pray regularly again, even if just to pray for Carey. It was so necessary that Carey be saved and made a good man. It was necessary just for their mother’s sake, and it must be done before she came home, or she would be likely to get sick again worrying about him.

Carey came slowly up the stairs, and went to his room. The family listened to his movements overhead, listened for his shoes to fall, and then to the creak of the springs as he at last got into bed. Listened longer as the springs continued to creak while Carey rolled around, settling himself—thinking, perhaps?—and then at last when all was still they slept.

It was well for Carey that a night intervened between his home-coming and the meeting with his family. The sharp words that swelled in the heart of each of them, and would surely have arisen to the lips of them, would not have been pleasant for him to hear. They might have been salutary; they undoubtedly would have been true; but it is exceedingly doubtful whether in his present state of mind he would have endured them graciously. He had had a good time, and he had come home. He was in no mood for fault-finding. The sight of the unfinished fireplace in the wide desolation of the renovated and enlarged room had given him a good-sized pang of remorse which was in a fair way to stay with him for a day or so. Sharp words would most certainly have dispelled it instantly and put him on the defensive. To blame as he undoubtedly was, he preferred to blame himself rather than to have his family do so; and the fact that he arose before light, before any of the others were even awake, and descended to the cellar quietly to pursue his interrupted work proved that he had begun to apprehend the likelihood of blame and wished to forestall it.

It was Harry who awoke first, feeling rather than hearing the dull thuds of the silent worker in the cellar. Hastily dressing, he stole down in wonder and delight, and was so well pleased with what he saw and with the most unusually cordial greeting from his elder brother that he remained to help and not to blame. When Louise came down, followed almost immediately by Cornelia, and found the two brothers working so affably, with a whole row of stones reared in the parlor, they gave one another a swift, understanding glance, and greeted their brothers collectively and joyously as if nothing had happened for the last four days.

Carey rattled off jokes, and worked away like a beaver, keeping them all in roars of laughter; and the father, waking late from his troubled sleep, heard the festive sound, and hurried down, relieved that the cloud of gloom had lifted from his home. He had had it in mind to give Carey a regular dressing down when he returned. Words fitly framed for such a proceeding had been forming red-hot in his worried mind all night. But the sight of his four children in gales of laughter over some silly little story Carey had told, and the sight of the clock hastening on to the moment of his car, restrained him; and perhaps it was just as well. Cornelia hurried him into his place, and gave him his breakfast, chattering all the time about the rooms and the changes, and so kept his mind busy. At last they all got away without a word of reproof to Carey, and Cornelia was left to wonder whether she ought to open the subject.