“I wouldn’t go in, if I was you,” said William, “He’s kind o’ tending to things—in his mind.”
But if Bodet fretted at delays and slow decisions and failure of material to arrive, he caught the spirit of the place, after a little, and settled down to it and held up work—a week at a time—while he changed details or pottered over new ones. Uncle William—in his element—went back and forth between the old chimney-place and his house, carrying ideas and bricks with impartial hand. George Manning, with one eye on his plans and the other on his men, pushed the work or held it back, as the wind blew. When the men grumbled over a foundation wall torn out and put in again, with a hair’s breadth of difference, he looked at them with slow, sympathetic eye and admitted that it wasn’t so very much different, maybe—just enough to look different, somehow.
It was when he had studied on the roofline a week or more, that he came in one morning—a look of cautious elation in his face.
Bodet sat before the fire reading day-before-yesterday’s paper. Uncle William was pottering about, finishing the last of the dishes, and Celia was down at, Andy’s helping Harriet who was ill.
Bodet looked up as the young man came in, and laid down his paper. “How is it coming on?” he said. The tone was mild. He had had a good night’s rest, and he had come somehow to share Uncle William’s belief that Manning would find a way out—“only give him time enough and suthin’ to figger on.”
The young man seated himself on the red lounge, his hat between his knees. “I don’t suppose you ’d like going up and down stairs?” he said.
Bodet looked at him a little quizzically and swung his glasses to his nose. “That depends,” he replied.
“It won’t be stairs exactly,” said Manning, “just steps, maybe. You drop the floor of the south room to get your level and then put some steps here—” He came over with the paper.
Bodet took it in cautious fingers.
Manning bent over him. “There’s the living-room and the fire-place,” He indicated the rough lines, “—just where you want them—You kind of look down into the room, you see, when the door’s open—instead of all on a level—?”