When the song was finished, Gincy hardly paused to take breath before she swung into another familiar melody and Talitha followed, her work forgotten. They had hardly reached the third line when a bass voice joined them, and Martin dropped down on the doorstep beside the two girls.
Below, on the creek path, a sorrel horse and its rider had halted. “Thet air Gincy’s voice fer sartin. I reckon the Coyles air a-singin’, too, but hit sounds diff’runt’n I ever hearn ’em afore; somethin’ like them a-choirin’ up yander, I reckon,” glancing upward. With a regretful sigh he heard the last echo die away.
“Gincy’s goin’ ter hev a chanct ter git larnin’, thet’s all,” declared Dan Gooch as he jogged slowly homeward.
II
MARTIN SURPRISES GOOSE CREEK
The next day, Martin began work on the addition to Squire Dodd’s cabin. Sam Coyle, much elated at his son’s success in securing the job, hastened thither and planted himself in the shade to watch its progress. He was not without company. There were a number who considered the squire had shown undue haste in giving so important a piece of work to a “striplin’,” and had gathered to note proceedings and proffer advice.
Martin listened in silent good humour to the wagging tongues. That his employer had confidence in his ability was enough, and he worked with unceasing energy. At the end of the second day the critics were silenced, and before the week was over it had been noised abroad that Sam Coyle’s son had come back from school with a trade at his “finger eends ’sides a heap o’ book larnin’.” The Settlement store was, for the first time in many months, nearly destitute of loungers.
Instead of the intended lean-to, a one story frame addition was built across the front of the Dodd cabin, shutting the original completely from view of the traveller on the creek path. A wide porch increased the magnificence of the structure, and when a coat of yellow paint with trimmings of a brilliant red denoted the completion of Martin’s contract, the spectators were unanimous in agreeing that the mountains had never seen anything quite so grand. The peaks looked down at the innovation with a new dignity—so it seemed to the young carpenter. He had been learning the value of simplicity, and he realized how little his handiwork harmonized with the beauty around it. But he had only carried out the wishes of the squire, and he dismissed the subject from his mind for something more weighty was upon it.
“I’ve been thinking ever since I came home,” he said that night to Talitha, “of something Professor Scott said: ‘It isn’t enough to get good things for ourselves, we must pass them on.’ I wish I could take some of the boys back to school with me.”
“I think you can reckon on Abner Gooch and the three Shackley boys already. I call that a pretty fair beginning. And there’ll be more. I heard that Dan Gooch said yesterday over at the Settlement, ‘If you want ter know what thet school down below here kin teach your young-uns, jest look at Squar’ Dodd’s manshun yander.’”
Martin laughed grimly. “If they do go they won’t think it such a work of art when they come back.”