The postmaster felt sorry for her and showed it.
“It’s easy,” he declared. Then he gathered his opinions in a bunch, and metaphorically hurled them at her. “Where’s the steel girders an’ stone masonry?” he demanded. “It’s just wood—pine. Wher’s the figures an’ measurements? Who knows the breakin’ strain o’ them green logs? Maybe it’s art, but it ain’t architecture. I ain’t so sure about the art, neither. It’s to be lined with red pine. Ther’ ain’t no art to red pine. Now maple—bird’s-eye maple, an’ we got forests of it. Ther’s art in bird’s-eye maple. It’s mighty pleasing to the eye. It ’ud make the folks feel good. Red pine? Red?” He shook his head ominously. “Not in this city. You see, red’s a shoutin’ color. Sets folk gropin’ fer trouble. But white’s different. It—it sort o’ sets folks thinking o’ them days when their little souls was white enough, even if their bodies wasn’t rid of a month’s dirt. I tell you, Rocky Springs ’ud get pious right away under the influence of bird’s-eye maple. Maybe they’d be fighting drunk later, but that don’t cut no ice. You see, it’s sort o’ natural to ’em. Still, the church would have done ’em some good if only it kept ’em a few seconds from doing somebody or something a personal injury.”
Billy was chafing at his friend’s monopoly of the talk and promptly seized the opportunity of belittling his opinions.
“What’s the use,” he cried. “I’m with Miss Kate. Charlie’s done right in fixing on red pine lining. Art’s art, an’ if you’re goin’ to be artistic, why, you just got to match things same as you’d match a team of horses, same as a woman does her fixings. ’Tain’t good to mix anything. Not even drinks. Red pine goes with raw logs. Say, there’s art in everything. Beans goes with pork; cabbage with corned beef. But you don’t never eat ice cream with sowbelly. Everybody hates winter. Why for do folks fix ’emselves like funeral mutes in winter? It’s just the artistic mind in ’em. They’d hate flying in the face of Providence by cheerin’ themselves up with a bit of color. Art is art, Dy, my boy; maybe art ain’t in your line, seein’ you’re a Government servant. Ther’ ain’t nothin’ but red pine for the inside of that church, or all art’s bust to hell. Start the folks in this city off on notions inspired by anemic woodwork, an’ the sight o’ so much purity would set ’em off sniveling on their women-folk’s bosoms, and give ’emselves internal chills shoutin’ fer ice water at O’Brien’s bar. You’d set the boys so all-fired good-natured they’d give ’emselves up fer the crimes they never committed, or they’d be startin’ up a weekly funeral club so as to be sure of a Christian burial anyway. You’d upset the harmony o’ Rocky Springs something terrible. Bird’s-eye maple—nothin’. Ain’t that so, Miss Kate?”
Kate laughed outright.
“I can’t quite follow all the arguments,” she said, cautiously. “But—but—it sounds all right.”
“Sure,” agreed Billy, complacently.
But Dy was not yet defeated.
“I’m arguin’ architecture,” he said doggedly. “Here,” he indicated the length of the main building, “I don’t care a cuss about your art. What about this? Where’s the tree grown hereabouts tall enough to give us a ridge pole for this roof? It means a join in the ridge pole. That’s what it means. And that ain’t architecture, Master Billy—smarty—Unguin.”