“How on earth could you get all the lumber you need ready so quickly? That’s one thing I couldn’t understand. The work is not so difficult to manage, of course. But the wood—that’s what’s been puzzling me.”
Jud grinned.
“Well, the truth is, ma’am, I expect to have a little argument about that yet with a city chap that’s building a house on the lake. I’ve got the job of putting it up for him, and if it hadn’t been for this fire coming along, I’d have started work day before yesterday.”
“Oh, and this is the lumber for his house?”
“You guessed it right, ma’am! He’ll be wild, I do believe, because there’s no telling when I’ll get the next lot of lumber through.”
“You say the fire stopped you from going ahead with his house?”
“Yes. You see all of us had to turn out when it got so near to Cranford. My house is safe, I do believe. I’m mighty scared of fire, ma’am, and I’ve always figured on having things fixed so’s a fire would have a pretty hard time reaching my property. But of course I had to jump in to help my neighbors—wouldn’t be much profit about having the only house left standing in town, would there?”
Eleanor laughed.
“I guess not!” she said. “But what a lucky thing for Mrs. Pratt that you happened to have just the sort of wood she needed!”
“Oh, well, we’d have managed somehow. Of course, it makes it easier, but we’d have juggled things around some way, even if this chap’s plans didn’t fit her foundations. As it happens, though, they do. Old Tom Pratt had a mighty well-built house here.”