Mrs. Job Smith had a great warm heart, but no education to speak of; and no mother had, in her childhood, begged her a dozen times a day not to use such expressions as "for the land's sake!" she knew no better than to suppose they added emphasis to her words; Jerry laughed.
"It is for the room's sake, auntie," he said. "We are going to have a cabinet shop in the barn loft. Mr. Smith said I might. I shall make some nice things, auntie, see if I don't. Come up in the loft, will you, and see my tool chest?"
This last sentence was addressed to Nettie who had appeared in her back door to admire the boxes. So the two climbed the ladder stairs, Nettie a little timidly as one unused to ladders, and Jerry with quick springs, holding out his hand to her at the top, to help her in making the final leap. Then he took from his pocket a curious little key which he explained to Nettie would open that tool chest provided you knew how to use it; but he supposed that a man who had stolen it might try for a week, and yet not get into the chest.
A skilful touch, and the handsome chest was open before her, displaying its wonders to her pleased eyes. It was a well-stocked chest. Chisels, and saws, and hammers, and augers, and sharp, wicked-looking little things for which Nettie had no name, gleamed before her.
"How nice!" she said at last. "How splendid! It looks as though somebody who knew how, could make splendid things with them."
"And I know how," said Jerry. "At least, I know some things. I spent a summer down in a little country town where father had some business; and the man we boarded with kept a small shop, where all sorts of things were made. Not a great factory, you know, where they make a thousand chairs of one kind, and a thousand of another, and never make anything but chairs. This was just a little country shop, where they made a table one day, and a chair the next, and a bedstead the next; and you could watch the men at work, and ask questions and learn ever so much. I got so I could use tools, as well as the next one, Mr. Braisted said, whatever he meant by that. Father liked to have me learn. He said tools were the cleanest sharp things that he knew anything about. I can make ever so many things. I like to do it. I wonder I have not been about it since I came here. Now what shall we go at first? What does your mother say about the room?"
"She is willing," said Nettie, "only she doesn't see how much of anything can be done. She is most discouraged, you see, and nothing looks possible to her, I suppose."
"That's all right. She can't be expected to know we can do things until we show her. If she will let us try, that is all we need ask."
"She says the room ought to have some kind of a carpet; they always have carpets in home-like rooms, she says; and I guess that is so. Except in kitchens, of course."
Nettie hastened to say this, apologetically, thinking of Mrs. Job Smith's bright yellow floor.