"You don't know what you have done for me this afternoon, my—friend!" He waited with her hand in his an instant as if he were going to say more, but had decided it were better not. The silence was so compelling that she looked up into his eyes, meeting his smile, and that said so many things her heart went into a tumult again and could not quite come to itself all through the Christian Endeavor service.
On the way home from the church he talked a little about her vacation: when it came, how long it lasted, what she would do with it. Just as they reached home he said,
"I hope you will pray for me, my friend!"
There was something wonderful in the way he said that word "friend." It thrilled her through and through as she stood beside the road and watched him speed away into the evening.
"My friend! I hope you will pray for me, my friend!" It sang a glory-song down in her heart as she turned to go in with the vivid glory of the sunset on her face.
CHAPTER XX
The cement floor had been down a week and was as hard as a rock, when one day two or three wagon-loads of things arrived with a note from Graham to Mrs. Hollister to say that he would be glad if these might be stored in one corner of the basement floor, where they would be out of her way and not take up too much room.
Harley and George went down to look them over that evening.
"He said something about some things being taken from the office building," said Harley, kicking a pile of iron pipes with his toe.
"These don't look like any old things that have been used," said George thoughtfully. "They look perfectly new." Then he studied them a few minutes more from another angle, and shut his lips judiciously. He belonged to the boy species that has learned to "shut up and saw wood," whatever that expression may mean. If anything was to come out of that pile of iron in the future, he did not mean to break confidence with anybody's secrets. He walked away whistling and said nothing further about them.