Nettie's mournful tone restored the boy's courage.
He laughed a little. "No use in borrowing trouble about that. He is afraid he cannot come back before winter, if he does then. I'm going to get him to let me stay here until he does come, though. And now we must attend to business. What will you have first in my line? Chairs, tables, sofas—why, anything you say, ma'am."
And both faces were sunny again.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW IT SUCCEEDED.
MRS. JOB SMITH leaned against the table in her bright kitchen, caught up the edge of her apron in one hand, then leaned both hands on her sides, and thought. Jerry had been consulting her. Was there any way of planning so that the front room in the Decker house could have a carpet? He repeated all Mrs. Decker said about a room not being home-like without one, and Mrs. Smith, at first inclined to combat the idea, finally admitted that in winter a room where you sat down to visit, did look kind of desolate without a carpet, unless it was a kitchen, and had a good-sized cook stove to brighten it up. There was no denying that that square front room would be the better for a carpet. At the same time there was no denying that the Deckers needed a hundred other things worse than they did a carpet. But the hearts of the boy and girl were bent on having one; and what the boy was bent on, Mrs. Job Smith liked to have accomplished, and believed sooner or later that it would be. The question was, How could she help to bring it about?
"There's that roll of rag carpeting, bran-new," she said aloud; Mrs. Smith had spent a good deal of her time alone and had learned to hold long conversations with herself, arguing out questions as well, sometimes she thought better, than a second party could have done. At this point she put her hands on her sides. "There's enough of it, and more than enough. I had it made for the front room the year poor Hannah died, and sent me that boughten carpet which just exactly fitted, and is good for ten years' wear. That rag carpeting has been rolled up and done up in tobacco and things ever since—most two years. Sarah Jane doesn't need it, and I don't know as I shall ever put it on the kitchen. I don't like a great heavy carpet in a kitchen, much, anyway; rugs, and square pieces that a body can take up and shake, are enough sight neater, to my way of thinking. But I can't afford to give away bran-new carpeting. To be sure it only cost me the warp and the weaving; and I got the warp at a bargain, and old Mother Turner never did ask me as much for weaving as she did other folks. The rags was every one of them saved up. Poor Hannah used to send me a lot of rags, and Sarah Jane and I sewed them at odd spells when we wouldn't have been doing anything. It is a good deal of bother to take care of it, and I'm always afraid the moths will get ahead of me, and eat it up. I might sell it to her for what the warp and the weaving cost me. But land! what would she pay with? I might give her a chance to do ironing. I have to turn away fine ironing every week of my life because I can't do more than accommodate my old customers. Who knows but she is a pretty good ironer? I might give her the coarse parts to iron, and watch her, and find out. Job is always at me to have somebody help with the big ironings, and I have always said I wouldn't have a girl bothering around, I would rather take less to do. But then, she is a decent quiet body, and that Nettie is just a little woman. She will have to do something to help along if they ever get started in being decent; perhaps ironing is the thing for her, and I can start her if she knows how to do it. For the matter of that, I might teach her how, if she wanted to learn. To be sure they need other things more than carpets, but it wouldn't take her long to pay for this, if I just charge for the weaving. I might throw in the warp, maybe, seeing I got it at a bargain. The two are so bent on having a carpet for that room; and Jerry, he said he had prayed about it, and while he was on his knees, it kind of seemed to him as though I was the one to get to think it out. That's queer now! Jerry don't know anything about the carpet rolled up in tobacco in the box in the garret; why should he think that I could help? I feel almost bound to, somehow, after that. I don't like to have Jerry disappointed, nor the little girl either, now that's a fact. I take to that little Nettie amazingly. Well, I know what I'll do. I'll talk with Job about it, and if he is agreed, maybe we will see what she says to it."
This last was a kind of "make believe," and the good woman knew it; Job Smith thought that his wife was the wisest, most prudent, most capable woman in the world, and besides being sure to agree to whatever she had to propose, he was himself of such a nature that he would have given away unhesitatingly the very clothes he wore, if he thought somebody else needed them more than he. There was little need to fear that Job Smith would ever put a stumbling-block in the way of any benevolence.
But who shall undertake to tell you how astonished Mrs. Decker was when Mrs. Smith, having duly considered, and talked with Sarah Jane, and talked with Job, and unrolled the tobacco-smelling carpet, and examined it carefully, did finally come over to the Decker home with her startling proposition. It is true that a carpet had taken perhaps undue proportions in this poor woman's eyes. Her best room during all the years of her past life had never been without a neat bright carpet; it had been the pleasant dream of her second married-life, so long as any pleasantness had been left to allow of dreaming; and she could not get away from the feeling that people who had not a scrap of carpeting for their best room, were very low down. She opened her eyes very wide while listening to Mrs. Smith's rapidly told story. What kind of a carpet could it be that was offered to her for simply the price of the weaving? for Job and his wife after some figuring with pencil and paper, had agreed together heartily to throw in the warp. She went over to the neat kitchen and examined the carpet. It was bright and pretty. There was a good deal of red in it, and there was a good deal of brown; a blending of the two colors which had been the subject of much discussion between herself and husband in the days when Mr. Decker talked anything about the comforts of his home. How well it would look in the square room which had two windows, and was really the only pleasant room in the house. Surely she could iron enough to pay for that.