"You have heard about a certain fellow by the name of Eperson, haven't you?" John asked, as he strove manfully to quench the glad lights in his eyes. "Well, he and Tilly have been sweethearts ever since they were children."
"He has, but she hasn't." Cavanaugh emphasized the "he." "I know all about it. He is as near dead as a man can be from disappointment. She might have thought she cared for him, at one time, but when you came all that was off. Now I'm going home to my old woman. Talking to you on these lines makes me want to see her mighty bad. I feel younger, and I'll bet she will look that way to me, too. But remember this, when we get back to Cranston, sail right in and tell Tilly how you feel. She knows, anyway, but you tell her straight out, like a man with a load of hay to sell, and be done with it. I want to rent this house and I'm going to do it."
They were outside the cottage now. Cavanaugh had closed the door and was on his knees, hiding the key under the step. John stood over him.
"I wish you knew what you are talking about, Sam," he said, and it was the first even indirect confession of the sacred tumult within him. "I'll say that much. I wish—I wish it could be like you say it is. My God! Sam, when I dare to think of it I go all to pieces. It is too good to be true. Nothing has ever come my way that amounted to much in this life. How could as big a thing as that be for me?"
"Well, it just is." Cavanaugh stood up, his fine face working in sympathy. "The Lord has fixed it that way, my boy. You have had a hard time, but your day is dawning. And listen to me. Under your full joy you are going to wake up into a gratitude to the Creator for His great gifts. You've been bitter—so bitter, for one reason or another, that you've denied even God's existence, but with a believing wife like Tilly at your side, and with children to bring up right, you will be different. You are just a boy, anyway—a great, big, awkward, stumbling boy, but you are going to make a man, and a good one."
CHAPTER XVIII
They parted outside the little gate, agreeing to meet at the Square in the afternoon, and John pursued his way homeward. The very ground seemed to fall away from his feet as he put them down. His whole body felt like an imponderable thing over which he had little control. The swelling joy within him fairly choked him.
"My God! My God!" he said several times, aloud. "Sam's a fool. Sam's a fool. It can't be so. My Lord! how could it? And that little house. It is a beauty and most women would like to run it and keep it in order. I wonder if she would with me. I wonder."
He found Dora under an apple-tree in the front yard, playing with some rag dolls she had made from scraps of finery cast off by her aunt and Mrs. Trott. A brick represented a table, and on it were arranged bits of china for plates. Other pieces of make-believe furniture were constructed of cardboard cut and bent into shape. She glanced up as he swung open the gate, smiled a welcome from a soiled face, and wiped her itching nose on the back of her slender hand. She did not rise or make any sort of physical demonstration by way of greeting.