The interested villagers were informed early and regularly of the progress of the latest scheme of their benefactress. Henry and Mr. Waters furnished most satisfactory and detailed bulletins to gatherings of leisurely and congenial spirits, who listened with incredulous amazement to the accounts of Mr. Welles's proceedings.
“Him an' that hired man o' his, they have took more stuff over to them Rooms than you c'd shake a stick at! I never see nothing like it—never! Waxed that floor, they have, and put more mats onto it—fur and colored. An' the stuff—oh, Lord! China—all that blue china he got fr'm ol' Mis' Simms, an' them ol' stoneware platters that Mis' Rivers was goin' to fire away, an' he give her two dollars for the lot—all that's scattered round on tables and shelves. An' that ol' black secr'tary he got fr'm Lord knows where, an' brakes growin' in colored pots standin' right up there, an' statyers o' men an' women—no heads onto 'em, some ain't got; it's all one to him—he'd buy any ol' thing so's 'twas broke, you might say. An' them ol' straight chairs—no upholsterin' on 'em, an' some o' them wicker kind that bends any way, with piliers in 'em. An' cups and sassers, with a tea-pot 'n' kittle; an' he makes tea himself an' drinks it—I swear it's so. An' a guitar, an', Lord, the pictures! You can't see no wall for 'em!
“'It's a mighty lucky thing, havin' this room, Thompson,' says he to that hired man, 'the things was spillin' over. We'll make it a bower o' beauty, Thompson,' says he. 'Yes, sir,' says the man. That's all he ever says, you might say. I never see nothin' like it, never, the way that hired man talks to him; you'd think he was the Queen o' Sheba.
“An' he goes squintin' about here an' there, changin' this an' that, an' singin' away an' laughin'—you'd think he'd have a fit. Seems's if he loved to putter about 'n' fool with things in a room, like women. I heard him say so myself. I was helpin' Miss Gould with the other rooms—she ain't seen his; she don't know no more'n the dead what he's got in there—an' I was by the door when he said it.
“'Thompson,' says he, 'if I don't keep my present situation,' says he, 'I c'n go out as a decorator an' furnisher. Don't you think I'd succeed, Thompson?' says he. 'Yes, sir,' says Thompson.
“'You see, we've got to do something Thompson,' says he. 'We've got ter justify our existence, Thompson,' an' he commenced to laugh. 'Yes, sir,' says Thompson. Beats all I ever see, the way that man answers back!”
An almost unprecedented headache, brought on by her unremitting labor in effecting the change in the Rooms, kept Miss Gould in the house for two days after the new headquarters had been satisfactorily arranged; and as Mr. Welles had refused to open his office for inspection till it was completely furnished, she did not enter that characteristic apartment till the third day of its official existence.
As she went through the narrow hallway connecting the four rooms on which the social regeneration of her village depended, she caught the sweet low thrum of a guitar and a too familiarly seductive voice burst forth into a chant, whose literal significance she was unable to grasp, owing to lack of familiarity with the language in which it was couched, but whose general tenor no one could mistake, so tender and arch was the rendering.
With a vague thrill of apprehension she threw open the door.
Sunk in cushions, a tea-cup on the arm of his chair, a guitar resting on his white flannel sleeve, reclined the director of the Rooms. Over his head hung a large and exquisite copy of the Botticelli Venus. Miss Gould's horrified gaze fled from this work of art to rest on a representation in bronze of the same reprehensible goddess, clothed, to be sure, a little more in accordance with the views of a retired New England community, yet leaving much to be desired in this direction. Kitty Waters attentively filled his empty cup, beaming the while, and the once errant Annabel, sitting on a low stool at his feet, with a red bow in her pretty hair, and her great brown eyes fixed adoringly on his face as he directed the fascinating incomprehensible little song straight at her charming self, was obviously in no present danger of running the streets.