“Yes, sold the colt,” solemnly responded Morty. And then added, “Father just wouldn’t! I tried to get that two hundred in various ways–adding it to my cigar bill; slipping it in on my bill for raiment at Wright & Perry’s, but father pinned Kyle down, and he stuttered out the truth. I tried to get the horse-doctor to charge the two hundred into his bill and when father uncovered that–I couldn’t wait any longer so I’ve sold the colt!”
“Well, Morty, what for in Heaven’s name?” asked Laura. Morty began fumbling in his pockets before he spoke. He did not smile, but as his hand came out of an inside pocket, he said gently: “For two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half! I fought an hour for that half dollar!” He handed it to the Doctor, saying: “It’s for the kindergarten. You keep it for her, Doctor Jim!”
When Morty had gone Mrs. Nesbit said: “What queer blood that Sands blood is, Doctor. There is Mary Sands’s heart in that boy, and Daniel has bred nothing into him. They must have been a queer breed a generation or two back!”
The Doctor did not answer. He took the money which Morty had given to him, handed it to Laura and said: “And 274now my dear, accept this token of devotion from Sir Mortimer Sands, of the golden heart and wooden head!” And then Laura laughed, not in derision, not in merriment even, but in sheer joy that life could mean so much. And as she laughed the temple not made with hands began to rise strong and beautiful in her heart and in the hearts of all who touched her.
How they would have sneered at Laura Van Dorn’s niche in the temple, those practical folk who helped her because they loved her. How George Brotherton would have laughed; with what suspicion John Kollander would have viewed the kindergarten, if he had been told that it was part of a temple. For he had no sort of an idea of letting the rag-tag and bob-tail of South Harvey into a temple; he knew very well they deserved no temple. They were shiftless and wicked. How Wright & Perry would have sniffed at any one who would have called the dreary little shack, where Laura Van Dorn held forth, a temple. For they all pretended to see only the earthly dimensions of material things. But in their hearts they knew the truth. It is the American way to mask the beauty of our nobler selves, or real selves under a gibing deprecation. So we wear the veneer of materialism, and beneath it we are intense idealists. And woe to him who reckons to the contrary!
Perhaps the town’s views on temples in general and Laura’s temple in particular, was summed up by Hildy Herdicker, Prop., when she read Mr. Left’s reflections in the Tribune. “Temples–eh?–temples not made with hands–is it? Well, Miss Laura can get what comfort she can out of her baby shop; but me? Every man to his trade as Kyle Perry said when he tried to buy a dozen scissors and got a sewing machine–me?–I get my heart balm selling hats, and if others gets theirs coddling brats–’tis the good God’s wisdom that makes us different and no business of mine so long as they bring grist to the profit mill! The trouble with their temples is that they don’t pay taxes!”
So in the matter of putting up temples–particularly in the matter of erecting temples not made with hands, the town worked blindly. But so far as Laura Van Dorn was concerned, while she was working on her part of the temple, 275she had the vision of youth still in her heart. Youth indeed is that part of every soul that life has not tarnished, and if we keep our faith, hold ourselves true and bow to no circumstance however arrogant it may be, youth still will abide in our hearts through many years. Now Laura, who was born Nesbit and became Van Dorn, was taking up life with that large charity that comes to every unconquered soul. She held her illusions, she believed in herself, and youth shone like a beacon from her face and glowed in her body.
For Thomas Van Dorn, who had been her husband, she had trained herself to hold no unkind thought. She even taught Lila–when the child asked for him–to harbor no rancor toward him. So the child turned to her father when they met, the natural face of a child; it was a sad little face that he saw–though no one else ever saw it sad; but the child smiled when she spoke and looked gently at him, in the hope that some day he would come back to her.
Now it happened that on the night when Laura’s laugh first echoed through her temple another rising temple witnessed a ceremony entirely befitting its use.
That night–late that night when a pale moon was climbing over the valley below the town, Margaret and her lover stood alone in the great unfinished house which they were building.