CHAPTER XXIV
THE FORSAKEN GARDEN
It's pleasant, on the whole, to do something worth doing; to make grass grow where it has never grown before; to put the last touch to a canoe-paddle of exactly the right weight and balance; to bring to something approximating one's ideal of a sound sentence the last stubborn, maddening clutter of words in a manuscript that has grown from a pen-scratch on the back of an envelope into a potential book. And Tom Kirkwood was not without his sense of satisfaction. He had without litigation straightened the Sycamore Company's financial tangles. Its physical deficiencies were being remedied and its service brought to standard. He had never in his life felt so conscious of his powers. He was out of debt—having paid back two thousand dollars Amzi had loaned him in the fall, after Phil had raised the red flag of danger in their affairs. The load was off his back; men spoke to him in the street with a new cordiality; the "Evening Star," in an excess of emotion following the taking-over of the First National Bank by Amzi and all the moving incidents connected with the drama of Main Street's greatest day,—the "Evening Star" had without the slightest provocation, declared that the Honorable Thomas Kirkwood was just the man for governor. The Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company had not only paid him handsomely, but was entrusting him with the rehabilitation of a traction company in Illinois that was not earning dividends.
He came back to Montgomery to try some cases at the April term of court and sent his trunk to the Morton House.
"It isn't square, daddy," said Phil, breaking in upon him at his office on the day of his arrival. "We were to open the house again when you had finished at Indianapolis. And here you are, not even telling me you were coming."
The office was dingier and dustier than ever. She abused him for not at least giving her a chance to clean it against his coming.
"I have to be off again in a week; it didn't seem worth while to put you to the trouble of opening the house just for that," he replied evasively. His own affairs again occupied his mind, and the sight of Phil gave a keen edge to his curiosity as to her life at Amzi's.
"Your new suit is certainly some clothes, and a glimpse of that four-in-hand makes the world a nobler and better place to live in! If the Indianapolis boulevards can do that for you, it's too bad I didn't know it long ago. I have an idea"—and she paused pensively in the act of dusting a chair—"I'm a good deal worried by the idea that you ought to be mussed!"
He pleaded mockingly for mercy, calling attention to her inconsistency in admiring his raiment while at the same time threatening it with destruction.
"You seem to have been to the dressmaker yourself. How's your bank account, Phil? I suppose your uncle will have to be more careful about overdrafts now that he has a national bank."