“The top of the morning to you,” said Mr. Fairgreaves in his melodious, rolling voice. “We come most faithfully upon the hour.”
“Sleep all right?” Whalen asked Tom in a weary sort of way, which somehow bespoke real interest.
“Fine,” said Tom.
“Boys,” said Ferris, “I thought we might as well get started on this arbor bridge or whatever you’d call it. Slade has some ideas about it; he’s built log cabins and such things.”
“Forest architect?” said Whalen.
Tom thought he could discern in Whalen that quality which had caused Audry to call him sarcastic. He was not exactly that, but it was sometimes possible to imagine a sneer in some of his remarks.
His calling Tom a forest architect was like his calling the cottage the executive mansion. And there seemed always the faintest slur in his invariable habit of calling Audry the maid of the mountain. But there was nothing critical or disrespectful in the words themselves and Tom, with all his profound regard for Audry, could never find anything to criticize in Whalen’s talk. It sometimes annoyed him that he could not. But as they became better acquainted he felt that Whalen did not take much stock in Miss Audry Ferris and that this was the real reason why she did not approve of Whalen.
During the work which began that morning, Tom found his new friends companionable and cheerfully helpful. They began by selecting and felling trees, and by the middle of the afternoon they had laid four trunks across the brook and proceeded with the interesting task of chopping thinner timber for the rustic superstructure which they had jointly planned.
“We’ll have a seat on either side of it,” said Tom. “So’s any one can sit and rest or read in it.”
“Sip refreshment from the brook and wisdom from a book,” said Fairgreaves in his elegant way. “Miss Audry can come here with her book and imbibe wisdom under the arbor.”