Dennison Grant: A Novel of To-day

by Robert J. C. Stead

“I guess I’m rather a man of whims,” he reflected, as he stood on the brow of the hill where the material for his buildings had been delivered. “It was a whim which first brought me west, and a whim which has brought me west again. I have a whim about my money, a whim about my farm, a whim about my buildings. I do not do as other people do, which is the unpardonable sin. To Linder I am a jester, to Murdoch a fanatic, to our friend the real estate dealer a fool; I even noticed my honest carpenter trying to ask me something about shell shock! Well—they’re MY whims, and I get an immense amount of satisfaction out of them.”

The days that followed were the happiest Grant had known since childhood. The carpenter, a thin, twisted man, bowed with much labor at the bench, and answering to the name Peter, sold his services by the day and manifested a sympathy amounting to an indulgence toward the whims of his employer. So long as the wages were sure Peter cared not whether the house was finished this year or next—or not at all. He enjoyed Grant’s cooking in the temporary work-shed they had built; he enjoyed Grant’s stories of funny incidents of the war which would crop out at unexpected moments, and which were always good for a new pipe and a few minutes’ rest; he even essayed certain flights of his own, which showed that Peter was a creature not entirely without humor. He developed an appreciation of scenery; he would stand for long intervals gazing across the valley. Grant was not deceived by these little devices, but he never took Peter to task for his loitering. He was prepared almost to suspend his rule that money must not be paid except for service rendered. “If the old dodger isn’t quite paying his way now, no doubt he has more than paid it many times in the past,” he mused. “This is an occasion upon which to temper justice with mercy.”

But it was in the planning and building of the house he found his real delight. He laid it out on very modest lines, as became the amount of money he was prepared to spend. It was to be a single-story bungalow, with veranda round the south and west. The living-room ran across the south side; into its east wall he built a capacious fireplace, with narrow slits of windows to right and left, and in the western wall were deep French windows commanding the magic of the view across the valley. The dining-room, too, faced to the west, with more French windows to let in sun and soul. The kitchen was to the east, and off the kitchen lay Grant’s bedroom, facing also to the east, as becomes a man who rises early for his day’s labors. And then facing the west, and opening off the dining-room, was what he was pleased to call his whim-room.

The idea of the whim-room came upon him as he was working out plans on the smooth side of a board, and thinking about things in general, and a good deal about Phyllis Bruce, and wondering if he should ever run across Zen Transley. It struck him all of a sudden, as had the Big Idea that night when he was on his way home from Murdoch’s house. He worked it out surreptitiously, not allowing even old Peter to see it until he had made it into his plan, and then he described it just as the whim-room. But it was to be by all means the best room in the house; special finishing and flooring lumber were to be bought for it; the fireplace had to be done in a peculiarly delicate tile; the French windows must be high and wide and of the most brilliant transparency....

The ring of the saw, the trill of the plane, the thwack of the hammer, were very pleasant music in his ears. Day by day he watched his dwelling grow with the infinite joy of creating, and night after night he crept with Peter into the work-shed and slept the sleep of a man tired and contented. In the long summer evenings the sunlight hung like a champagne curtain over the mountains even after bedtime, and Grant had to cut a hole in the wall of the shed that he might watch the dying colors of the day fade from crimson to purple to blue on the tassels of cloud-wraith floating in the western sky. At times Linder and Murdoch would visit him to report progress on the Big Idea, and the three would sit on a bench in the half-built house, sweet with the fragrance of new sawdust, and smoke placidly while they determined matters of policy or administration. It had been something of a disappointment to Grant that Murdoch had not considered Phyllis Bruce one of “the family.” He had left her, regretfully, in the East, but had made provision that she was still to have her room in the old Murdoch home.

“Phyllis would have come west, and gladly, if I could have promised her a position,” Murdoch explained, “but I could not do that, as I knew nothing of your plans, and a girl can’t afford to trifle with her job these days, Mr. Grant.”

And Grant said nothing, but he thought of his whim-room, and smiled.

Grant was almost sorry when the house was finished. “There’s so much more enjoyment in doing things than in merely possessing them after they’re done,” he philosophized to Linder. “I think that must be the secret of the peculiar fascination of the West. The East, with all its culture and conveniences and beauty, can never win a heart which has once known the West. That is because in the East all the obvious things are done, but in the West they are still to do.”

“You should worry,” said Linder. “You still have the plowing.”

“Yes, and as soon as the stable is finished I am going to buy four horses and get to work.”