“Yes,” Bardek continued. “You will always be that way. You let your thinkings grow right up, so they show in your eyes and around the corners of your mouth. You would never make little diplomat—great statesman? Yes? Perhaps; for you would fool all the little liars and gamblers—they would look on your face and see what is to them an unknown t’ing, the truth. It is vairy confusing to little statesmen—the truth, m’sieu’. When the big Bismarck was in corner he quick tell the truth so’s nobody would believe and all go the wrong way. Sometime, I, too, have tol’ t’ truth.”
“Well, I hope so!” laughed Blynn. “But we’re all forgetting the main business in hand. Top-o’-the-Hill is emerging out of dreamland into reality. Come, Miss Manager, let’s discuss plans. Holden will find my resignation in tomorrow’s mail.”
The plans were even better matured than Blynn had hoped for. Kate had kept at work—“To keep my mind off Petruchio”—she had told him. Mac had already cleaned paths and had made a rough estimate of the building needs. There was much to be done there; but with some outside hired help, and everybody joining in, September should see a school-house prepared for those parents who had courage to trust their children to the experimenters. Blynn’s work was already mapped out on a card. First was the writing of the “prospectus.” He could do that “trick” with the proper sense and style. It wasn’t to be a pedagogical document, but a thriller to win parents over.
Blynn agreed, but insisted upon one further condition. The property must be assessed at a marketable figure and a proper rental paid.
“Trust your manager,” advised Kate. “I don’t intend to give anything away. A stock-company is to be formed, which will buy the land and house. I will take 51 per cent. of the shares as security and to control you reckless ones. The stock-company pays taxes and improvements; but I insist upon the wild rose and all the literary ceremonies.”
“Right!” agreed Allen. “The first wild rose of spring shall be yours; but this is something more than poetry; it is almost my only means of livelihood. I should be needlessly worried if I felt for a single minute that the thing did not pay for itself entirely. I cannot live on your property, Kate.”
“Now, that is vairy strange,” Bardek commented when the matter had been made clear to him. “You cannot take the ol’ house and little earth.”—He said something like “leetle airt,” but it was perfectly clear as he spoke it.—“Oh, no! You would have such shame! But you would take it quick if I be fool and sell it cheap! You cannot take money! But you take rent from poor peoples who cannot pay! And you not take my ol’, good coat which is now too little for me! Ach! you would be beggar! But you take present from me of my best workmanship which give me much labor and a big pain in t’ back! And you take my dinner at my table wit’ no shame at all; and my laughter and all my good talk and my friendliness, which take all my life to make and cost me—everyt’ing! It is strange! As for me—poof!—I have not the shame. When you give and I want, I jus’ take and forget, like wind and rain.”
For the next few days they toiled like slaves on the “property.” They dug, planted, cut weeds, sawed and even plastered. Bardek secured the help of one or two Italians to do the heavy hauling. “Work is good,” he argued, “it is the only medicine; but a broken back, it is not good. The little men of Italy? Ah! They are built so. See how they laugh! I talk to them of Garibaldi and zoop! they carry like demons.”
As they trudged home one weary afternoon, full of exultant hopes, a newspaper fell into their hands. Blynn’s picture had caught Kate’s quick eye. “Blynn, Holden’s Chief,” ran the headlines. It told of a special meeting of the board of trustees, and reviewed Blynn’s history with the accuracy of a fond parent. The vote was 7 to 2.
“Never you mind,” Blynn grew rigid as he turned to his friends. “That won’t go! I told Diccon to withdraw my name; I see he didn’t. It’s all right, Kate. I’ll get out of this somehow. I’ve been to the top of Pisgah; there’ll be no turning back until we reach the Promised Land.”