It is, however, difficult for any man to sink his own absorptions in those of another, and so it fell about that on the way Cappeze stopped at the barn he was building and which was not yet quite complete.
“Brother Hawkins,” he said, “as we go along I want 184 to show you the barn I’ve been planning for years—and at last have nearly realized.”
In the crude, unfinished life of the hills, lean-tos and even rock ledges are pressed into service as barns, but the man who has erected an ample and sound structure for such a purpose, stamps himself as one who “has things hung up,” which is the mountain equivalent for wealth.
“That barn,” explained Cappeze, pausing before it in expansiveness of mood, “is a thing I’ve wanted ever since I moved over here. A good barn stands for a farm run without sloven make-shift—and that one cost me well-nigh as much money as my dwelling house. I reckon it sounds foolish, but to me that building means a dream come true after long waiting. I’ve skimped myself saving to build it, and it’s the apple of my eye. If I saw harm come to it, I almost think it would hurt me more than to lose the house I live in.”
“I reckon no harm won’t come ter hit, Brother Cappeze,” reassured the other. “Yit hit mout be right foresighted to insure hit erginst fire an’ tempest.”
“Of course I will—when it’s finished,” said the other as he led the way inside, and then as he played guide, he forgot the pigeons and swelled with the pride of the builder, while time that meant life and death went by, so that it was quite a space later that they emerged again and went on to the destination which had first called them.
But having arrived there, the elder man halted and his face shadowed to a disturbed perplexity.
“That’s strange,” he murmured. “One pigeon’s inside—the hen—and there’s the cock trying to get in. 185 It’s the bird Glory took with her. It must have gotten away from her.”
“’Pears like ter me,” volunteered the preacher, “hit’s got some fashion of paper hitched on ter one leg. Don’t ye dis’arn hit, Brother Cappeze?”
Cappeze started as his eyes confirmed the suggestion. Hurriedly he ran up the ladder to the resting plank where the bird crooned and preened itself, plainly asking for admittance to its closed place of habitation. Perhaps his excited manner alarmed the pigeon, which would alight on Glory’s shoulder without a qualm, for as the man reached out his hand for it, it flutteringly eluded him and took again to the air.