"And rob me of a pleasure?" she asked.
"No, relieve you of a drudgery. Come on, Alf."
Two fools went to bed in the dark and sighed themselves to sleep, and two fools dreamed; I know that one did—dreamed of eyes and smiles and a laugh like a musical cluck.
CHAPTER X.
More than a month passed and they were still working on the school-house. The simple plan had been drawn with but a few strokes of a pencil, the sills had been placed without delay, but they had to plane the boards by hand and that had taken time. Alf and I had again sat at the old General's table, had listened to his words so rounded out with kindliness, and upon returning to the porch had heard him storm at something that had gone amiss. Millie showed her dimples and her pretty teeth, smiling at Alf and at me, too, but I saw no evidence that she loved him. Indeed, she had been so much petted that I thought she must be a flirt, and yet she said nothing to give me that impression. Guinea was just the same, good-humored, rarely serious. One Sunday I went to church with her, walked, though the distance was two miles; stood near the cave wherein the British soldiers had hidden themselves, and talked of everything save love. I cannot say that I had a sacred respect for her feelings; I think that I should have liked to torture her, but something closed my heart against an utterance of its heavy fullness.
One Saturday afternoon I was told that the school-house would be ready on the following Monday. I had been out many times to view the work, but I decided to go again to see that everything was complete. I expected that Alf would go with me, for the corn was laid by, but I could not find him. His mother told me that he had put on his Sunday clothes and that she had seen him going down the road. And so I went alone. The house was done, and what a change from the pile of old logs! The walls were painted white and the blinds were green. The bushes were cleared off, and the scorched trees had been cut down, split up and hauled away. I have never seen a neater picture, and in it I saw not only the progress of the people, but the respect in which they held me.
I had come out of the woods on my way home and was on a high piece of grazing land not far from the house when I saw a man ride up to the yard fence, dismount, tie his horse and go into the house. This within itself was nothing, for I had seen many of the neighbors come and go, but a sudden chill seized upon me now, and there I shook, though the heat of June lay upon the land; and it was some time before I could go forward, stumbling, quaking, with my eyes fixed upon the horse tied at the fence. In the yard behind the house I came upon Mrs. Jucklin, gathering up white garments that had been spread to dry upon the althea bushes. "Chyd Lundsford has come," she said, and I replied: "Yes, I know it."
I stepped upon the passage and passed the sitting-room door without looking in; I sat down in a rocking chair that had been placed near the stair-way, sat there and listened to a girl's laugh and the low mumble of a man's voice. "Let us go out where it's cooler," I heard Guinea say, and I got up with my head in a whirl.
"Mr. Hawes, this is Mr. Lundsford."