THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT

John Trott waked that morning at five o'clock. Whether it was due to the mere habit of a working-man or the blowing of the hoarse and mellow whistle at the great cotton-mills beyond the low, undulating hills half a mile away he did not know, but for several years the whistle had been his summons from a state of dead slumber to a day of toil. The morning was cloudy and dark, so he lighted a dingy oil-lamp with a cracked and smoked chimney, and in its dim glow drew on his coarse lime-and-mortar-splotched shirt and overalls. The cheap cotton socks he put on had holes at the heels and toes; his leather belt had broken and was tied with a piece of twine; his shoes were quite new and furnished an odd contrast to the rest of his attire.

He was young, under twenty, and rather tall. He was slender, but his frame was sinewy. He had no beard as yet, and his tanned face was covered with down. His hair was coarse and had a tendency to stand erect and awry. He had blue eyes, a mouth inclined to harshness, a manner somewhat brusk and impatient. To many he appeared absent-minded.

Suddenly, as he sat tying his shoes, he heard a clatter of pans in the kitchen down-stairs, and he paused to listen. "I wonder," he thought, "if that brat is cooking breakfast again. She must be, for neither one of those women would be out of bed as early as this. It was three o'clock when they came in."

Blowing out his light, he groped from the room into the dark passage outside, and descended the old creaking stairs to the hall below. The front door was open, and he sniffed angrily. "They didn't even lock it. They must have been drunk again. Well, that's their business, not mine."

The kitchen was at the far end of the hall and he turned into it. It was almost filled with smoke. A little girl stood at the old-fashioned range, putting sticks of wood in at the door. She was about nine years of age, wore a cast-off dress, woman's size, and was barefooted. She had good features, her eyes were blue, her hair abundant and golden, her hands, now splotched with smut, were small and slender. She was not a relative of John's, being the orphaned niece of Miss Jane Holder, who shared the house with John's mother, who was a widow.

The child's name was Dora Boyles, and she smiled in chagrin as he stared down on her in the lamplight and demanded:

"Say, say, what's this—trying to smoke us to death?"

"I made a mistake," the child faltered. "The damper in the pipe was turned wrong, and while I was on the back porch, mixing the biscuit-dough, it smoked before I knew it. It will stop now. You see it is drawing all right."

With an impatient snort, he threw open the two windows in the room and opened the outer door, standing aside and watching the blue smoke trail out, cross the porch floor, and dissolve in the grayish light of dawn.

"The biscuits are about done," Dora said. "The coffee water has boiled and I'm going to fry the eggs and meat. The pan is hot and it won't take long."

"I was going to get a bite at the restaurant," he answered, in a mollified tone.

"But you said the coffee was bad down there and the bread stale," Dora argued, as she dropped some slices of bacon into the pan. "And once you said the place was not open and you went to work without anything. I might as well do this. I can't sleep after the whistle blows. Your ma and Aunt Jane waked me when they came in. They were awfully lively. The fellows were singing and cursing and throwing bottles across the street. Aunt Jane could hardly get up the stairs and had one of her laughing spells. I think your ma was sober, for I could hear her talking steady and scolding Aunt Jane about taking a dance from her with some man or other. Did you see the men? They were the same two that had 'em out last Friday night, the big one your ma likes and the one Aunt Jane says is hers. I heard your ma say they were horse-traders from Kentucky, and have lots and lots of money to spend. That jewelry drummer—do you remember, that gave me the red pin?—he sent them with a note of introduction. The pin was no good. The shine is already off of it—wasn't even washed with gold."

John was scarcely heeding what she said. He had taken a piece of paper from his pocket, and with a brick-layer's flat pencil was making some calculations in regard to a wall he was building. The light was insufficient at the door and he was now bending over the table near the lamp.

"Do you want me to make you some flour-and-cream gravy?" she asked, ignorant of his desire to be undisturbed. "The milk looks good and rich this morning."

"No, no!" And he swore under his breath. "Don't you see I'm figuring? Now I'll have to add up again."

She made the gravy, anyway. She took out the fried bacon, sprinkled flour in the brown grease, stirred the mixture vigorously, and then there was a great sizzling as she added a cup of milk, and, in a cloud of fragrant steam, still stood stirring. "There," she said, more to herself than to him. "I'm going to pour it over the bacon. It is better that way."

He had finished his figuring and now turned to her. "Are your biscuits done?" he asked. "I think I smell them."

"Just about," she answered, and she threw open the door of the oven, and, holding the hot pan with the long skirt of her dress, she drew it out. "Good! Just right!" she chuckled. "Now, where do you want to eat—here or in the dining-room? The table is set in there. Come on. You bring the coffee-pot."

Still absently, for his thoughts were on his figures, he followed her into the adjoining room. It was a bare-looking place, in the dim light of the lamp which she placed in the center of the small, square table with its red cloth, for there was no furniture but three or four chairs, a tattered strip of carpeting, and an old-fashioned safe with perforated tin panels. Two windows with torn Holland shades and dirty cotton curtains looked out on the side yard. Beneath the shades the yellowing glow of approaching sunlight appeared; a sort of fog hovered over everything outside and its dampness had crept within, moistening the table-cloth and chairs. John poured his own coffee while standing, and Dora went to bring the other things. His mind was busy over the work he was to do. Certain stone sills must be placed exactly right in the brickwork, a new scaffold had to be erected, and he wondered if the necessary timbers had arrived from the sawmill which his employer, Cavanaugh, had promised to have delivered the night before in order that the work might not be delayed. John sat down. He burnt his lips with the hot coffee, and then pouring some of it into his saucer, he drank it in that awkward fashion.

"How is it?" Dora inquired. "Is it strong enough?" She was putting down a dish containing the fried things and eyed his face anxiously.

"Yes, it is all right," he said. "Hurry, will you? Give me something to eat. I can't stay here all day." He took a hot biscuit and buttered it and began to eat it like a sandwich. She pushed the dish toward him and sat down, her hands in her lap, watching his movements with the stare of a faithful dog.

"Your ma and Aunt Jane almost had a fist-fight yesterday while they was dressing to go out," she said, as he helped himself to the eggs and bacon and began to eat voraciously. "Aunt Jane said she used too much paint and that she was getting fat. Your ma rushed at her with a big hair-brush in her hand. She called her a spindle-shanked old hag and said she was going to tell the men about her false teeth. It would really have been another case in court if the two horse-men hadn't come just then. They quieted 'em down and made 'em both take a drink together. Then they all laughed and cut up."

"Dry up, will you?" John commanded. "I don't want to hear about them. Can't you talk about something else?"

"I don't mean no harm, brother John." She sometimes used that term in addressing him. "I wasn't thinking."

"Well, I don't want to hear anything about them or their doings," he retorted, sullenly. "By some hook or crook they manage to get about all I make—I know that well enough—and half the time they keep me awake at night when I'm tired out."

She remained silent while he was finishing eating, and when he had clattered out through the hall and slammed the gate after him she began to partake daintily of the food he had left. "He's awfully touchy," she mused; "don't think of nothing but his work. Bother him while he is at it, and you have a fight on your hands."

Her breakfast eaten, Dora went to the kitchen to heat some water for dish-washing. She had filled a great pan at the well in the back yard and was standing by the range when she heard some one descending the stairs. It was Mrs. Trott, wearing a bedraggled red wrapper, her stockingless feet in ragged slippers, her carelessly coiled hair falling down her fat neck. She was about forty years of age, showed traces of former beauty, notwithstanding the fact that the sockets of her gray eyes were now puffy, her cheeks swollen and sallow.

"Is there any hot coffee?" she asked, with a weary sigh. "My head is fairly splitting. I was just dozing off when I heard you and John making a clatter down here. I smelled smoke, too. I was half asleep and dreamed that the house was burning down and I couldn't stir—a sort of nightmare. Say, after we all left yesterday didn't Jim Darnell come to see me?"

"No, not him," Dora replied, wrinkling her brow, "but another fellow did. A little man with a checked gray suit on. He said he had a date with you and looked sorter mad. He asked me if I was your child and I told him it was none of his business."

"That was Pete Seltzwick," Mrs. Trott said, as she filled a cup with coffee from the pot on the stove and began to cool it with breath from her rather pretty, puckered and painted lips. "You didn't tell him who we went off with, did you?"

"No, I didn't," the child replied, then added, "Do you reckon Aunt Jane would like some coffee before she gets up?"

"No. She's sound asleep, and will get mad if you wake her. Oh, my head! My head! And the trouble is I can't sleep! If I could sleep the pain would go away. Did John leave any money for me? He didn't give me any last week."

"No," Dora answered, "he said the hands hadn't been paid off yet. You know he doesn't talk much."

Mrs. Trott seemed not to hear. Groaning again, she turned toward the stairway and went up to her room.

CHAPTER II

John had passed out at the scarred and battered front door, crossed the floor of the veranda, and reached the almost houseless street, for he lived on the outskirts of the town, which was called Ridgeville. On the hillside to the right was the town cemetery. The fog, shot through with golden gleams of sunlight, was rising above the white granite and marble slabs and shafts. Ahead of him and on the right, a mile away, could be seen the mist-draped steeples of churches, the high roof and cupola of the county court-house. He heard the distant rumble of a coming street-car and quickened his step to reach it at the terminus of the line near by before it started back to the Square. The car was a toylike affair, drawn by a single horse and in charge of a negro who was both conductor and driver.

"Got a ride out er you dis time, boss," the negro said, with a smile, as John came up. "Met some o' yo' hands goin' in. Want any mo' help ter tote mortar en' bricks? 'Kase if you do, I'll th'o' up dis job. De headman said maybe I was stealin' nickels 'kase de traffic is so low dis spring, en' I didn't turn in much. If you got any room fer—"

"You'll have to see Sam Cavanaugh," John answered, gruffly. "If you climb a scaffold as slow as you drive a car you wouldn't suit our job."

"Huh! dat ain't me; it's dis ol' poky hoss. I'm des hired to bresh de flies offen his back."

The negro gave a loud guffaw over his own wit and proceeded to unhitch the trace-chains and drive the horse around to the opposite end of the car. John entered and took a seat. He drew from the pocket of his short coat a blue, white-inked drawing and several pages of figures which Cavanaugh had asked him to look over. A rather pretentious court-house was to be built in a Tennessee village. Bids on the work had been invited from contractors in all directions and John's employer had made an estimate of his own of the cost of the work and had asked John's opinion of it. John was deeply submerged in the details of the estimate when the car suddenly started with a jerk. He swore impatiently, and looked up and scowled, but the slouching back of the driver was turned to him and the negro was quite unconscious of the wrath he had stirred. For the first half-mile John was the only passenger; then a woman and a child got aboard. The car jerked again and trundled onward. The woman knew who John was and he had seen her before, for he had worked on a chimney Cavanaugh had built for her, but she did not speak to him nor he to her. That he had no acquaintances among the women of the town and few among the men outside of laborers had never struck John as odd. There were gaudily dressed women who came from neighboring cities and visited his mother and Jane Holder now and then, but he did not like their looks, and so he never spoke to them nor encouraged their addressing him. A psychologist would have classified John as a sort of genius in his way, for his whole thought and powers of observation pertained to the kind of work in which he was engaged. Cavanaugh half jestingly called him a "lightning calculator," and turned to him for advice on all occasions.

Reaching the Square, John sprang from the car and, with the papers in his hand and the pencil racked above his ear, he hurried into a hardware-store and approached a clerk who was sweeping the floor.

"We need those nails and bolts this morning," he said, gruffly. "You were to send them around yesterday."

"They are in the depot, but the agent hasn't sent 'em up yet," the clerk answered. "We'll get them around to you by ten o'clock sharp."

"That won't do." John frowned. "We could have got them direct from the wholesale house, and have had them long ago, but Sam would deal with you. He is too good-natured and you fellers all impose on him."

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," the clerk proposed. "I'll send a dray for them this minute and you'll have them on the ground in a half-hour."

"All right," John said, coldly, and turned away.

The building on which he was at work was a brick residence in a side-street near by which was being erected for a wealthy banker of Ridgeville, and as John approached it he saw a group of negro laborers seated on a pile of lumber at the side of the half-finished house.

"Here comes John now," one of them said, and it was significant that his given name was used, for it was a fact that a white man in John's position would, as a rule, be spoken of in a more formal manner, but to whites and blacks alike he was simply "John" or "John Trott." This was partly due, perhaps, to his youth, but there was no doubt that John's lack of social standing had something to do with it. He had been nothing but a dirty, neglected street urchin, a playmate of blacks and the lowest whites, till Cavanaugh had put him to work and had discovered in him a veritable dynamo of physical and mental energy.

"Good morning," several of the negroes said, cordially, but John barely nodded. It was his way, and they thought nothing of it.

"Has Sam got here yet?" he inquired of a stalwart mortar-mixer called Tobe.

"No, suh, boss, he 'ain't," said the negro. "I was gwine ter see 'im. I'm out o' sand—not mo' 'n enough ter las' twell—"

"Four loads will be dumped here in half an hour," John broke in. "Did you patch that hose? Don't let the damn thing leak like it did yesterday."

"It's all right, boss. She won't bust erg'in." The negro smiled. Evidently he had not washed his face that day, for splotches of whitewash with globules of dry mortar were on his black cheeks and the backs of his hands.

The whistle at a shingle-factory blew. It was eight o'clock, the hour for work to begin.

"Mort'!" John's command was directed to two mortar-carriers, who promptly grasped their padded wooden hods and made for the mortar-bed where Tobe was already shoving and pulling the grayish mass to and fro with a hoe.

John hung up his coat on the trunk of an apple-tree into which some nails had been driven, and took his trowel and other tools from a long wooden box with a sloping water-proof lid. He was about to ascend the scaffold when he saw Cavanaugh approaching and signaling to him to wait.

The contractor was a man of sixty years, whose beard and hair were quite gray. He was short and stocky, slow of movement, and gentle and genial in his manner. He had been a contractor for fifteen years, and had accumulated nothing, which his friends said was owing to his good nature in not insisting on his rights when it came to charges and settlements. Widows and frugal maiden ladies would have no one else to build for them, for Sam Cavanaugh was noted for his honesty and liberality, and he was never known to use faulty material.

"Mort' there! Get a move on you, boys!" John was eying his employer with impatience as he approached. "Fill all four boards and scrape the dry off clean!"

"Wait a minute, John!" Cavanaugh said, almost pleadingly. "I want to see you about the court-house bid. I want to mail it this morning."

"What! And hold up this whole gang?" John snorted, impatiently.

"Oh, let 'em wait—let 'em wait this time," Cavanaugh said. "Where are the papers?"

With a suppressed oath, John went to his coat and got them. "I haven't time to go over all that, Sam," he answered. "Wait till dinner-time."

"But I thought you was going to look it over at home," the contractor said, crestfallen, as he took the papers into his fat hands.

"Oh, I've looked them over, all right," John replied, "and that's the trouble—that's why it will take time to talk it over."

"You mean— I see." Cavanaugh pulled at his short, stiff beard nervously. "I'm too high, and you are afraid I'll lose the job."

"Too high nothing!" John sniffed, with a harsh smile. "You are so damned low that they will make you give double security to keep you from falling down on it. Say, Sam, you told me you was in need of money and want to make something out of this job. Well, if you do, and want me to go up there in charge of the brickwork, you will have to make out another bid. I'm done with seeing you come out by the skin of your teeth in nearly every job you bid on. When a county builds a court-house like that they expect to pay for it."

"Why, I thought— I thought—" Cavanaugh began.

But John broke in: "You thought a thousand dollars would cover the ironwork. It will take two. The market reports show that steel beams have gone out of sight. Nails are up, too, and bolts, screws, locks, and all lines of plumbing material."

"Why, John, I thought—"

"You don't keep posted." John glanced up at the scaffold as if anxious to get to work. "Then look at your estimate of sash, doors, blinds, and glass. You are under the cost by seven hundred at least. And where in God's world could you get slate at your figure? And the clock and bell according to the requisition? Sam, you made those figures when you were asleep."

"Then you think I could afford— I want the job bad, my boy—do you reckon I could land it if I raised my offer, say by fifteen hundred?"

"You will have to raise it four thousand," John said, thoughtfully. "Think of the risk you would be running. If the slightest thing goes crooked the official inspectors will make you tear it down and do it over. Look at your estimate on painting," pointing with the tip of his trowel at a line on the quivering manuscript which the contractor held before his spectacled eyes. "You are away under on it. White lead is booming, and oil and varnish, and you have left out stacks of small items—sash cords, sash weights, and putty."

"Then you think this won't do?" Cavanaugh's face was turning red.

"Do? It will do if you want to present several thousand dollars to one of the richest counties in Tennessee. Why, one of those big farmers up there could build that house and give it to the state without hurting himself, while you hardly own a roof over your head."

"You may be right about my figures," Cavanaugh muttered. "Say, John, I want to get this bid off. Leave the bricklaying to Pete Long and come over to the hotel and write it out for me."

"And let him ruin my wall?" John snorted. "Not on your life! His mortar joints are as thick as the mud in the cracks of a log cabin. I'll do it to-night after I go home, but not before. I don't believe any man ought to let one job stand idle in order to try to hook another. To-morrow is Saturday. They couldn't get the bid anyway till Monday. There will be plenty of time."

As John finished he was turning to the scaffold. "Well, all right," Cavanaugh called after him. "That will have to do."

CHAPTER III

When the steam-whistles of the shops and mills of Ridgeville blew that afternoon at dusk John descended from the scaffold and put his tools away. He was the last of the workers on the spot, and when he had put on his coat he went around to the side of the building and with a critical eye scanned the wall he had worked on that day.

"It will look all right when it is washed down with acid," he mused. "That will straighten the lines and tone it up."

He was too late for the car and walked home. He found Jane Holder in the kitchen, preparing supper. She was a slight woman of thirty-five, dark, erect, with brown, twinkling eyes and short chestnut hair which had not regained its normal length since it was cut during a spell of fever the preceding winter. Touches of paint showed on her yellowish cheeks, and her false teeth gave to her thin-lipped mouth a rather too full, harsh expression.

"Oh, here you are!" She smiled. "I know you are hungry as a bear, but I had my hands full with all sorts of things. I was sewing on my new organdie and got the waist plumb out of joint. Your ma promised to help fit it on me, but Harrington, one of those horse-dealers, come by in a hurry to drive her to Rome behind two brag blacks, and she dropped me and my work to get ready. She is always doing me that way. She makes a cat's-paw of me. May Tomlin is going to have a dance at her house to-night and wrote Harrington to bring her. She left me clean out, though when May stayed here that time I was nice to her and introduced her to all my friends. Your ma didn't care a rap about me. She was going, and that was enough for her."

John simply grunted and turned away. He had not heard half she said. On the back porch was a tin wash-basin and a cedar pail. He wanted to bathe his face and hands, for his skin was clammy and coated with sand and brick-dust, but the pail was empty, so he took it to the well close by and filled it. He was about to return to the porch when he saw Dora, the woman's skirt pinned up about her slight waist, coming from the cow-lot with a tin pail half filled with milk.

"I had trouble with the cow," she said, wistfully, in her quaint, half-querulous voice. "While I was milking, she turned around to see her calf and mashed me against the fence. I pushed and pushed, but I couldn't move her. Once I thought my breath was gone entirely. The calf run along the fence, and she went after it, and that let me loose. I lost nearly half the milk, and Aunt Jane will give me the very devil about it. Well, Liz— I mean your mother's gone for the night, and we won't need quite so much. She's been drinking it for her complexion. Some woman told her—"

"Oh, cut it out!" John cried, with a suppressed oath. "You chatter like a feed-cutting machine."

He took the water to the porch, filled the basin, and washed his face, hands, and neck. He was just finishing when Dora came to him with a tattered cotton towel. "It is damp," she explained, apologetically. "I ironed them in a hurry when they were too wet. They ought to have been hung out in the sun longer, but the sun was low when I got through washing, and so I brought some of them in too soon. Your ma and Aunt Jane use the best ones in their rooms, and leave the ragged ones for us."

"You forgot something you promised to do, brother John," she added, timidly, as he stood vigorously wiping his face and neck.

"What was that?" he mumbled in the towel.

"Why, you promised to send a nigger to cut me some stove-wood and kindling. I tried to cut some myself to-day, but the ax is dull and I had trouble getting enough wood for to-night and in the morning. Will you send him to-morrow?"

"Yes," he nodded. "I'll make one of the boys come over and cut it and store it under the shed. There is a lot of pine scraps at the building. I'll send a load of them over, too."

After supper, which he had with Jane Holder and her niece in the dimly lighted dining-room, he went up to his room and prepared to work on the estimates for Cavanaugh. He was very tired, and yet the calculations interested him and drove away the tendency to sleep. Down-stairs he heard Jane laughing and talking to some masculine visitor. He had a vague impression that he knew the man, a young lawyer who was a candidate for the Legislature. John had been approached by the man, who had asked for his vote, but John was not of age and, moreover, he had no interest in politics. In fact, he scarcely knew the meaning of the word. Politics and religion were mysteries for which he had little but contempt. He used to say that politicians were grafters and preachers fakers, though he did believe that Cavanaugh, who was a devout Methodist, was, while deluded, decidedly sincere. He heard Dora's voice down-stairs as she timidly asked her aunt if she might go to bed.

"Have you washed the dishes and put them up?" Jane asked.

"Yes, 'm," the child said, and John heard her ascending the stairs to her room back of his. She used no light, and he heard her bare feet softly treading the floor as she undressed in the dark. Soon all was quiet in her room, and he plunged again into his work.

Finally it was concluded, and he folded the sheets on which he had written so clearly and so accurately and went to bed. It was an hour before he went to sleep. He could still hear the low mumbling, broken by laughter, below, but that did not disturb him. It was his figures and estimates squirming like living things in his brain that kept him awake till near midnight.

The next morning he decided to walk to the Square, that he might stop at Cavanaugh's cottage and hand him the papers.

The little house of only six rooms stood in another part of the town's edge. Close behind it was a swamp filled with willow-trees and bracken, and farther beyond lay a strip of woodland that sloped down from a rugged mountain range. There was a white paling fence in front, a few fruit-trees at the sides, and a grape-arbor and vegetable-garden behind. Mrs. Cavanaugh, a portly woman near her husband's age, was on the tiny porch, sweeping, and she looked up and smiled as John entered the gate.

"Sam's just gone down to the swamp to see what's become of our two hens," she said. "He'll be back in a few minutes. He'd like to see you. He thinks a lot of you, John."

"I haven't time to wait," John explained, taking the papers from his pocket and handing them to her. "Give these to him. He will know all about them."

"I know— I understand. They are the bid on that court-house." She smiled broadly. "Sam was awfully set back. He told me all about it last night. He admits he was hasty, but, la me! he is so anxious to land that contract that he can hardly sleep. You see, he thinks maybe it is our one chance to lay by a little. You see, Sam hasn't the heart to charge stiff prices here among Ridgeville folks, but he feels like he's got a right to make something out of a public building like that one. He says you insisted on a bigger bid and he is between two fires. He wants to abide by your judgment and still he is afraid you may have your sights too high. You see, he says some of the biggest contractors will send in bids and that they will cut under him because they are bigger buyers of material."

"Sam's off there," John said, thoughtfully. "He can borrow all the money he needs for a job like that and he can get material as cheap as any of them. The main item is brick, and that is made right here in town, and the stone is got out and cut here, too."

"You may be right," the woman said. "But to tell you the truth, John, Sam is afraid you are too young to decide on a matter as big as this deal. Several men he knows have advised him to make as low a bid as possible."

"Well, if he cuts under the estimates I've made in those papers," John returned, "he'll lose money or barely get out whole. I want to see him make something in his old age. I'm tired of seeing folks ride a free horse to death. He may be underbid on this, and if he loses the job he'll curse me out, but I'm willing to risk it." John turned away. "Just hand 'em to him," he said, from the little sagging gate, "and tell him that is my final estimate. If he wants to change it he may do so. I'm acting on my best judgment."

Half an hour later, as John was on the scaffold at work, Cavanaugh crossed the street and slowly ascended the ladders and runways till he stood on the narrow platform at the young mason's side. He held a long envelop which had been stamped and addressed in his fat hand. John saw him, but, being busy cutting a brick with his trowel and fitting into a mortar-filled niche a bat of exactly the right size, he did not pause or speak. It was his way, and had so long been his way that Cavanaugh had become used to it.

"Hey, hey! Get a move on you down there!" John shouted. "This mort' is getting dry!"

"Hold up a minute, John!" the contractor said. "My wife handed me the papers. I wrote the letter and stamped it and put in the bid exactly as you had it and was on the way to the post-office with it when I met Renfro going in the bank by the side door. You know he expects to lend me the money if it goes through—my bid, I mean—and he asked me what I was going to do. I told him, and he wanted to look over the bid. I let him, and he looked serious. He said he thought you was too steep, and if I wanted to get the job, why, I'd better—"

"I know," John sneered. "He thinks he knows something about building, but he is as green as a gourd. I've given you my judgment—take it or not, Sam, as you think fit. As big as I've made that bid, I'm afraid you will be sorry you didn't make it bigger."

"Renfro says young folks always aim too high," Cavanaugh ventured, tentatively. "He's got the money ready, he says, and wants me to win."

John was cutting another brick in halves. His steel trowel rang like a bell as he tossed the red brick like a ball in his strong, splaying hand. Cavanaugh took a small piece of a tobacco-plug from the pocket of his baggy trousers and automatically broke off a tiny bit and put it into his hesitating mouth:

"I want that job, John," he faltered, as he began to chew. "I've set my heart on it. It is the biggest deal I ever tackled, and I'd like to put it through. I want me and you to go up there and work on it. It would be a fine change for us both."

"Well, I don't want to go if it is a losing proposition," John said, as he filled his trowel with mortar and skilfully dashed it on the highest layer of bricks. "And if you cut under my estimate you will come out at the little end of the horn."

Cavanaugh stood silent. A negro was dumping the contents of a hod on John's board and scraping out the clinging mortar with a stick. When the man had gone down the cleated runway and John was raising his line for another layer of bricks, Cavanaugh sighed deeply.

"Well," he said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do, John. I'm going to mail the bid just as you made it out and trust to luck. I'm going to do it. I admit I've been awfully upset over it, but I can't remember that you ever gave me wrong advice, young as you are. My wife says I ought to do it, and I feel so now, anyway."

It was as if John had not heard his employer's concluding words. He was standing on his tiptoes, leaning over and carefully plumbing the wall on the outside.

"Yes, I'm going to drop it in the post-office right now," Cavanaugh said, as he started down the planks. "After all, there may be a hundred bids sent in, and some of the bidders may have all sorts of political pulls."

Again John seemed not to hear. He was tapping a protruding brick with the handle of his trowel and gently driving it into line. "All right—all right," he said, absently, and he frowned thoughtfully as he applied his plumb to the wall and eyed it critically.

CHAPTER IV

The residence on which John was at work was almost finished. He was on the highest scaffold one morning, superintending the slating of the roof, when, hearing Cavanaugh shouting on the sidewalk below, he glanced down. The contractor, with his thin alpaca coat on his arm, was signaling to him to come down.

"All right," John said. "In a minute. I'm busy now. Don't throw the broken ones away," he added to the workers. "Stack 'em up. We get rebates on them, and have to count the bad ones."

"Right you are, boss," a negro answered, with a chuckle. "Besides, we might split somebody's skull open."

"Oh, come on down!" Cavanaugh shouted again, with his cupped hands at his lips. "I want to see you."

"I can't do two things at once," John said, with a frown and a suppressed oath. "Say, boys, get that next line straight! Look for cracked slate, take 'em out, and lap the smooth ones right."

He found Cavanaugh near the front fence. The contractor was fond of jesting when he was in a good humor, and from his smiling face he seemed to-day to be in the best of spirits.

"No use finishing the roof," he said, squinting along the north wall of the building. "That wall is out of plumb and has to come down. Great pity. Foundation must have settled. That's bad, my boy."

"Well, it was your foundation, not mine," John retorted, seeing his trend. "What do you want?"

Slowly Cavanaugh took a letter from the pocket of his baggy trousers and held it in his fat hands. "What you think this letter is about?" He smiled with tobacco-stained lips.

"How the devil would I know?" John asked, impatiently.

"Well, I'll tell you," Cavanaugh continued. "It is from the Ordinary of Chipley County, Tennessee. He says he is writing to all the many bidders on that court-house to let 'em know the final decision on the bids. He was powerful sorry, he said, to have to tell me that I was nowhere nigh the lowest mark. Read what he says."

Wondering over his friend's mood, John opened the letter. It was a formal and official acceptance of the bid made by Cavanaugh. Without a change of countenance John folded the sheet, put it into the envelop, and handed it back. Some negroes were passing with stacks of slates on their shoulders.

"Be careful there, Bob!" he ordered, sharply. "You drop another load of those things and I'll dock you for a day's pay."

"All right now, boss," the negro laughed. "I got erhold of 'em."

"Well, what do you think?" Cavanaugh's gray eyes were twinkling with delight. "Lord! Lord! My boy, I feel like flying! I've laid awake many a night over this, and now it is ours. Gee! I could dance! I told Jim Luce about it at the post-office just now. He is going to write it up in his paper. Gosh! I'm glad this house is finished! We are foot-loose now and can set in up there whenever we like."

It was like John Trott to make no comments. He was watching the workers on the roof with a restless eye. The air resounded with the clatter of the hammers and the grating of the slates one against the other as they were selected and put down.

"You are an odd boy," Cavanaugh said, with a pleased chuckle. "What are you looking at up there?"

"They are not on to that job." John frowned. "Those coons work like they were at a corn-shucking. They don't drive the nails right. They are breaking a lot of slate and losing enough nails to shingle a barn."

"Oh, they are all right." Cavanaugh spat and chewed unctuously. "Gee! What if they do break a few slates? We are in the swim, my boy, and we'll give that county the prettiest court-house in the state, and the people will appreciate it." Therewith, Cavanaugh put his hand on John's arm and the look of merriment passed. "I've got to say it, my boy, and be done with it. You kept me from making a dern fool of myself and losing the little I have saved up. If it hadn't been for you—"

"Oh, cut it out, Sam!" There was an expression of embarrassed irritation on the young man's face. He was turning to leave, but Cavanaugh, still holding his arm, drew him back.

"I won't cut it out!" He all but gulped, cleared his throat, and went on: "I owe you my thanks and an apology. Only yesterday I got weak-kneed because I hadn't heard from up there, and told Renfro and some others who wanted to know about the bid that I had done wrong to listen to as young a man as you are. I said that, and even talked to my wife about it the same way, and now we all see you was right. John, I don't intend to let you keep on at your old wages. You are not getting enough by a long shot, and from now on I'll give you a third more. I'm going to make some money out of this deal and you deserve something for what you have done."

John looked pleased. "Oh, I'll take the raise, all right," he said, with one of his rare smiles. "I can find a use for the money."

"Say, John"—Cavanaugh pressed his arm affectionately—"this will be our first jaunt away any distance together. We can have a lot o' fun. I'm going to order me a new suit of clothes, and I am going to make you a present of one, too. You needn't kick," as John drew back suddenly, "it will be powerful small pay for all the figuring you did at night when you was plumb fagged out."

"Well, I'll take the suit, too," John said, and smiled again. "You are liberal, Sam, but you always was that way."

"Well, we'll go to the tailor shop together at noon," Cavanaugh said, delightedly. "You can help me pick out mine and I'll see that Parker fits you. You have got some shape to you, my boy, and you will cut a shine up there."

Leaving his employer, John ascended to the roof again, this time through the interior of the almost finished house, and out by a dormer window. The old town stretched out beneath him. To the east the hills and mountains rose majestically in their blue and green robe under the mellow rays of the sun. A fresh breeze fanned John's face. A man near him broke a slate by an unskilful stroke of the hammer and raised an abashed glance to John.

"It is all right, Tim," he said. "I'm no good at slating myself. You are doing pretty well for a new hand. Say, Sam's landed that court-house contract."

The nailers and their assistants had heard. The hammers ceased their clatter. Cavanaugh was seen standing in the middle of the road, looking up at them. A man raised a cheer. Hats and hammers were waved and three resounding cheers rang out. Cavanaugh took off his straw hat and stood bowing, smiling, and waving.

"Lucky old duck!" Tim, who was a white man, said, "and he was afraid it would fall through."

John's glance roved over the town, the only spot he had ever known. Beyond the outskirts ran the creeks in which he had fished and bathed as a ragged boy. Toward the south rose the graveyard a mile away. He could see the dim roof of the ramshackle house in which he had lived since he was five years of age. John looked at his watch.

"Get a move on you, boys," he said, in his old tone. "Say, that last line is an eighth too low at this end. Lift it up. Take off the three slates this way and nail 'em back. Damn it! Take 'em off, even if you break 'em. I won't have a line like that in this job. It shows plain from this window."

CHAPTER V

Two weeks later Cavanaugh and John left for Cranston, the Tennessee village where the new building was to be erected. They had on their new clothes and were smoking cigars which Cavanaugh had bought. Some of the negroes and whites who had worked under them came to the depot to see them off, and they all stood on the platform, waiting for the train. There was much mild gaiety and frequent jests. Cavanaugh was quite talkative, but John, as usual, was silent. The men had jested with the contractor about his new clothes, but no one dared to allude to John's. Indeed, John seemed unconscious of his change of appearance. But for his coarse red hands, his rough, tanned face, and stiff, unkempt hair, he would have appeared rather distinguished-looking. A bevy of young ladies of the best social set of the town, accompanied by several of their young men associates, had gathered to see one of their number off. They passed close to John, but paid not the slightest attention to him, and they made no impression on him. That there was such a thing as social lines and castes had never occurred to him. He saw the young lawyer who stealthily visited Jane Holder join the group and stand chatting, but even this gave him no food for reflection. In regard to extraneous matters John Trott seemed asleep, but in all things pertaining to his work he was wide awake. His mental ability, strength of will, and dearth of opportunity would have set a psychologist to speculating on his future, but there were no psychologists in Ridgeville. Ministers, editors, teachers, fairly well-read citizens, met John Trott almost daily and passed him without even a thought of the complex conditions of his life and of the inevitable awakening ahead of him.

When the train came, John and Cavanaugh said good-by to their friends and got aboard. They threw their cigars away and found seats in the best car on the train. It was the first trip of any length that John had ever taken, and yet he did not deport himself like a novice. Cavanaugh bought peanuts, candy, and a newspaper from the train "butcher," but John declined them. His employer had spoken to him about some inside walls and partitions which had to be so arranged in the new building as to admit of some alcoves and recesses not down in the specifications, and John was turning the matter over in his mind.

A few miles from Ridgeville a young couple got on the train and came into the car. The young man was little older than John and looked like a farmer in his best clothes. He was flushed and nervous. His companion was a dainty girl in a new traveling-dress. They sat near an open window and through it came showers of rice, a pair of old slippers, and merry jests from male and female voices outside.

"Bride and groom," Cavanaugh whispered, nudging his companion. "She is a cute little trick, ain't she? My, my! how that takes me back!"

The entire car was staring at the self-conscious pair, who were trying to appear unconcerned. The train moved on. John was no longer thinking of his work. His whole being was aflame with a new thought. Strange, but the idea of marriage as pertaining to himself had never come to him before. The sight of the pair side by side, the strong masculine neck and shoulders, and the slender neck and pretty head of the girl with the tender blue eyes, fair skin, and red lips appealed to him as nothing had ever done before.

"That is the joy due every healthy pair in the world," Cavanaugh went on, reminiscently. "Life isn't worth a hill of beans without it. These young folks will settle down in some neat little cottage filled with pure delight—that's what it will be, a cottage of delight for them. He'll work in the field and she will be at home ready for him when he gets back. Look how they lean against each other! I can't see from here, but I will bet you he is holding her little soft hand."

For the next half an hour the couple was under John's observation. He found himself unable to think of anything aside from his own mind-pictures of their happiness.

Cavanaugh was full of the idea also. "It is ahead of you, too, my boy," he said. "You are old enough and are now making enough money to start out on. Pick you some good, sweet, industrious girl. There are plenty of the right sort, and they will love a man to death if he treats 'em right. Look, she's got her head on his shoulder, but she's not going to sleep. She's just playing 'possum. There, by gum! he kissed her! If he didn't I am powerfully mistaken. Well, who has a better right?"

The pair left the train at a station in the woods where there were no houses and two wagon-roads crossed and where a buggy and a horse stood waiting. Through the window John saw the bridegroom leading the bride toward it. Beyond lay mountain ranges against the clear sky, fields filled with waving corn and yellowing wheat. The near-by forests looked dank, dense, and cool.

"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" The old man's words rang again in his ears as the train moved on and the pair and their warm faces were lost to view. John took out some notes he had made in regard to the masonry of a vault in the new building and tried to fix his mind on them, but it was difficult to do. The mental picture of that young couple filled his whole being with a strange titillating warmth. Within an hour his view of life had broadened wonderfully. He was not devoid of imagination and it was now being directed for the first time away from the details of his occupation. He could not have analyzed his state of mind, but he had taken his first step into what was a veritable new birth.

"It is ahead of you, too, my boy!" Nothing Cavanaugh had ever said to him could have meant so much as those words. A home, a wife all his own. Why had he never thought of it before? He was conscious of a sort of filial love for the old contractor that was as new as the other feeling. He was conscious, too, of a new sense of manhood, and a pride in his professional ability that was bound to help him forward.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Cranston. The Ordinary of the county, at Cavanaugh's request, had arranged board for the two men at the house of a farmer, there being no hotel in the village where board could be had by the week at a rate low enough for a laborer's pocket. So at the station they were met by the farmer himself, Richard Whaley, who stepped forward from a group of staring mountaineers and stiffly introduced himself.

He was a man of sixty-five, bald, gray as to hair and beard, and slightly bent from rheumatism. His skin was yellowish and had the brown splotches which indicate general physical decay.

"My old woman is looking for you," he said, coldly. "She made the arrangement. I have nothing to do with it. She and my daughter do all the cooking and housework. If they want to make a little extra money I can't object. The whole county is excited over the new court-house. They act and talk like it was Solomon's temple, and will look on you two as divine agents of some sort. Folks are fools, as you no doubt know."

"A little bit—from experience," Cavanaugh joked. "The Ordinary tells me you are a Methodist. That's what I am, brother, and I'll love to live under a Methodist roof once more."

"Yes, thank God! that's what I am," Whaley said. "My wife is, too. I'll show you our meeting-house when we pass it. I've got a Bible-class. It is the biggest in the county—twenty-two members."

"That is a whopper," Cavanaugh said. "I'd like to set and listen sometimes. I've had fresh light given me many a day by other men's interpretations of passages I'd overlooked."

"We are very thorough," Whaley responded, warming up to the subject. Then he turned to John. "What church do you belong to?" he asked, rather sharply.

"I haven't joined any yet," John answered. He was slightly embarrassed and yet could not have told why.

"Oh, he will come around all right before long," Cavanaugh thrust in, quickly. "I've got him in charge."

"Well, he is old enough to affiliate somewhere," the farmer said, crisply. "It is getting entirely too common these days to meet young folks that think they can get along without divine guidance. That is our meeting-house there. We are laying off to put a fresh coat of paint on it in the fall."

They passed the little steepled structure and walked on down the thinly inhabited street which was as much a country road as a street, till they came to a two-story house with a small farm behind it. A tall, thin woman in a gingham dress sat on the long veranda and rose at their approach.

"This is the house and that's my wife," Whaley explained. "The property isn't mine. I'm just a renter, but I can keep it as long as I want to. We've been here ten years." He opened the gate and let the new-comers enter ahead of him. They were introduced. Mrs. Whaley shook hands as stiffly as had her husband.

"Come right in," she said, smiling. "I know you've had a hot, dusty train-ride, and I reckon you will want to rest."

They put down their bags in the little bare-looking hallway from which a narrow flight of stairs ascended, and followed her into a big parlor on the right. Here they took chairs. The afternoon sun shone in through six wide windows and fell on the clean, carpetless floor. A wide fireplace was filled with the boughs of mountain cedar, and the hearth had been freshly whitewashed. There was a table in the center of the room, a tiny cottage organ between two windows, and some crude and gaudy print pictures in mahogany frames on the walls. The four individuals formed an awkward, purposeless group, and no one seemed able to think of anything to say. John was wondering what could possibly happen next, when Mrs. Whaley said:

"I know you both must be thirsty. I'll get Tilly to fetch in some fresh water from the well."

She rose stiffly and left the room. "Oh, Tilly! Tilly! where are you?" they heard her calling in the back part of the house. "Leave the churning a minute and draw up a bucket of fresh water. They are here."

Through the open windows from the shaded back yard John heard a girlish voice answering, "I'm coming, mother." Then there was a whir of a loose wooden windlass and the dull thump of a bucket as it struck the surface of the water. This was followed by the slow creaking of the windlass and a sound of pouring water.

"We didn't come here to be waited on like a couple of nabobs," Cavanaugh jested. "Let's go out to the well. We ought to begin right and be done with it. The last time I boarded in the country I chopped my own fire-wood and toted it in. I'd have washed the dishes I messed up, but the women of the house wouldn't let me."

Without protest Whaley got up and led the way through the sitting-room, dining-room, and kitchen to the well in the yard where Mrs. Whaley and her daughter, a girl of about eighteen years of age, stood filling some glasses on a tray.

"My daughter Tilly," Whaley said, indifferently. "The only one I have left. Her two sisters married and moved off West. Her brother Tom died awhile back."

The girl seemed shy, and scarcely lifted her eyes as she advanced and held out her hand first to Cavanaugh and then to John. She was slight of build, not above medium height, and had blue eyes and abundant chestnut hair.

"Pass the water 'round," her mother instructed her, but both John and Cavanaugh stepped forward and helped themselves. For a moment Tilly stood hesitating, and then she turned to her churn at the kitchen door and began to raise and lower the dasher. She had rolled up her sleeves, and John, who was covertly watching her, saw her round white wrists and shapely fingers. The way her unbound hair fell about her neck and lay quivering on her moving shoulders caught and held his fancy. How gloriously different she seemed from the only girls he had ever met, the bedizened creatures whom he sometimes saw at his home with his mother and Jane Holder! And, strange to say, he almost pitied Tilly for being bound as she was to the two unemotional old people who seemed to rule her as with a rod of iron. What a patient little sentient machine she seemed!

"You'll want to see your rooms, I reckon," Whaley said. "Amelia'll show you up-stairs. The Ordinary said he didn't think you'd be over-particular. They have plenty of air and light."

John was delighted with his room. It was palatial compared to the sordid den he inhabited at home in its constant disorder and dirt. As he glanced about him, noted the snowy whiteness of the towels at the wash-stand, the freshly laundered white window-curtains, and the clean pillows and coverlet of the great wide bed, he had a sense of meeting a new experience in life that was vastly gratifying. He heard Cavanaugh clattering about in his room across the narrow passage, and smiled. The old man's words, "A cottage filled with pure delight," rang in his ears like a haunting strain of music.

CHAPTER VI

They had supper at six o'clock in the big dining-room. The sun was not yet down, and through the open windows and door John looked out on a small but orderly arranged flower-garden upon which the slanting rays of the sun rested. Whaley sat at the head of the table, his wife at the foot. Tilly was not in sight. She was in the adjoining kitchen, and as he sat with his wrinkled hands crossed over his down-turned plate, her father suddenly called out to her.

"Tilly," he cried, "come set down till the blessing is asked, and then you can bring the things in."

Her face flushed as from the heat of the stove, the girl came in and slipped demurely into a chair opposite John and next to Cavanaugh. John had never gone through such an ordeal before, and he felt awkward. He noticed that all the others had lowered their heads, and he did likewise, though he had a certain rebellious feeling against it.

"I don't know what you have been accustomed to," Whaley suddenly said, looking at Cavanaugh, "but I have always held, as a principle, that the head of a house ought to ask the blessing on it; so you will understand, sir, that in failing to call on you I mean no disrespect."

"Oh, not at all," the contractor mumbled. "I think you are right about that. I always do it at home. Of course, if there is an ordained minister on hand, I ask him, but otherwise I don't."

"Well, I don't even in that case," Whaley answered, crustily. "I've always made it a rule, and I stick to it." Then he cleared his throat, lowered his head again, and prayed aloud at some length. John could not have recalled afterward what it was that he had said, for the most of the words used were unusual and high-sounding.

The prayer was no sooner ended than Tilly rose and hastened from the room. She came back almost instantly with a great platter of fried ham and eggs and a plate of steaming biscuits, and began to pass them around.

"What is the matter with your hand, Tilly?" her mother asked, and John, who was helping himself from the dish the girl was offering him, noted that a red welt lay across the back of one of her small hands.

"I burnt it getting the biscuits out," Tilly answered, almost beneath her breath.

"How foolish!" her mother retorted. "You are getting more and more careless. Bring in the coffee next. I want to be pouring it out. Most folks like to start a meal that way."

Tilly disappeared and returned with the coffee-pot. Somehow John, as he ate his supper, found himself thinking of the painful burn on Tilly's hand, and was oblivious of the conversation regarding religious matters between Cavanaugh and Whaley and his wife.

"Now, come set down and eat your supper," Mrs. Whaley said to her daughter, and Tilly took the chair she had occupied while grace was being said. She kept her eyes downcast, and John noticed her long, slightly curled lashes as they rested on her flushed cheeks and her pretty, tapering hands. She said nothing during the entire meal.

When supper was over, Whaley led the two men into the parlor and lighted an oil-lamp which stood on the mantel-piece, for it was growing dark. They had seated themselves when Whaley rose and took a song-book from the cottage organ and extended it to Cavanaugh.

"Have you got this new book of revival hymns down your way?" he inquired.

"I don't think so," the contractor answered, inspecting it.

"Well, it is by all odds the best all-round collection I've ever run across," Whaley said. "Tilly plays all of 'em pretty well, and we have a regular song-service here whenever we feel like it. Do you sing, Mr.—Mr. Trott?"

"No, sir," John replied. "I have no turn that way."

"Well, maybe you'll get the hang of it while you are here," Whaley smiled coldly. "I don't believe there is any way in the world that a man can get to God quicker, straighter, or closer than in sacred song. I've seen a congregation stand out against the finest appeal ever made from the stand, and the minute some good singer started a rousing hymn they were all ablaze, like soldiers following fife and drum." Herewith Whaley went to the door and called out:

"Amelia, let the dishes rest and you and Tilly come in. We want some music."

"Good! Good!" Cavanaugh chimed in, rubbing his hands. "We are in luck, John. If there is anything on earth I like after a hearty meal it is hymn-singing. It takes me back to the good old camp-meeting days when everybody, young and old, sang, and even shouted when the spirit was on them."

Tilly and her mother came in. The girl went to the organ on which her father was placing the lamp, and sat on the stool. The light fell on her face and John, sitting against the wall on her right, had a full view of it and her graceful figure. Her father had opened the song-book and placed it on the music-rack. Her slender fingers rested on the yellow keys; the red welt on her hand showed plainly, and John wondered if it pained her much. There was no way of deciding, for she showed no sign of suffering. She began to pump the organ with her little feet. She drew out the stops and began to play. She did it badly, but there were no expert musical critics in the room. Whaley and his wife stood behind her and both of them sang loudly. Cavanaugh had never heard the song, and so he did not take active part, though John saw him beating time with his finger and now and then contributing a suitable bass note. Cavanaugh was delighted with the hymn.

"Why don't you join in, little girl?" he asked, gently, as he beamed on Tilly.

"I can't sing and play at the same time," she explained, modestly, catching John's attentive stare and avoiding it, her brown lashes flickering.

They sang some old familiar hymns now, and all three of the singers joined in together.

"I tell you we make a good trio," Whaley exulted. "You've got a roaring bass, Brother Cavanaugh. We'll surprise the natives some night at prayer-meeting. We'll set to one side like and spring it on 'em all at once."

John felt like an alien in the religious and musical atmosphere and was somewhat irritated by the announcement later from Whaley that he always had a chapter read from the Bible and a prayer before going to bed, and, as he believed in retiring early, he suggested that they have the service over with. Accordingly, he removed the lamp from the organ to the table, and from the sitting-room brought a big family Bible. A further surprise was in store for John, for Whaley placed a chair under the lamplight and called on his daughter to sit in it. He smiled coldly as she obeyed and opened the Bible. "You may think it odd, Brother—er—Cavanaugh—you've got a hard name to remember, sir. I say, you may think it odd for me to call on my daughter to read out loud this way. I admit it isn't the general custom, but, the truth is, I discovered that she'd got the habit of not listening to me while I was reading, or commenting, either. So I made up my mind that I'd have her do the reading herself. It has worked pretty well. She is in my Bible-class, and now answers as many questions right as any of the rest, no matter the age or the education."

Tilly was blushing as she lowered her head over the big tome with its brass corners and clasps, and John was sorry for her. A storm of rage against her father ran through him. This was dispelled quickly, however, for when the girl began to read in her clear and sweetly modulated voice he sat transfixed by the sheer charm and music of the delivery. Her neck was bare, and he saw her white throat throbbing like that of a warbling bird. He did not grasp the full sense of what she read, for some of the words were unusual to him. Had she been reading in a foreign tongue, it would have been no more marvelous to him. Her flush had died down; her eyes rested unperturbed on the page; one little hand curved around a corner of the big book; the fingers of its mate held a leaf ready to be turned. The lamplight fell into the brown mass of hair that crowned her well-poised head like a halo. Her long lashes seemed mystic films through which he glimpsed her eyes. Looking across the room, he saw Cavanaugh, his rough fingers interlocked over his knee, staring steadily at the reader. Was it imagination or were the old man's eyes actually moist? They seemed to glitter in the light.

Tilly finished the chapter and slowly closed the book, fastening the clasps carefully. She raised her eyes to John's face and quickly, almost guiltily, looked away. Her father had risen and stood holding the back part of his chair with his two hands.

"Now we'll kneel down and pray," he said. "Brother—er—er—Cavanaugh, I don't know what your habit or turn is, but I'm going to ask you to lead if you feel so inclined."

Cavanaugh was rising. "I make a poor out," he said, "but I'll do my best. I—I don't often refuse when called on." He was looking at John almost appealingly. "I—I regard it as a duty to—to my religion and membership."

The strange, alien feeling swept over John again. He had never heard his jovial associate pray, though he had been told that Cavanaugh did so now and then; besides, John felt as if he were being personally imposed upon. He was not religious; he had never even been to church, and here he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily, their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament, but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was untrue. They—even Cavanaugh—were hypocrites, and in their secret souls they knew it.

Cavanaugh's prayer was labored—it did not flow as from the tongue of a man who loves the sound of his own mouthing—and it was soon ended. Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign.

Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled—smiled straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her. It was as if she had started to remove the thread herself and decided that the act would invoke criticism from her elders as a thing too forward for a girl to do.

With a laugh that was bold now in its sheer merriment John took out his pocket-knife, opened the blade, and managed to pick up the thread.

"Well, I reckon you are both tired and we are early to bed and early to rise here," Whaley was saying. "You both know the way up-stairs."

There were no formal good-nights exchanged. The Whaleys withdrew to their rooms on the ground floor and John and Cavanaugh went up the stairs. John thought Cavanaugh would go straight into his room, but he followed him into his and helped him find and light his lamp.

"I want to tell you something, my boy," he began, his eyes shifting back and forth from John's face to the jagged flame of the small lamp. "I want to get something out of me and be done with it. I made a regular fool of myself there to-night."

"I don't understand," John said, in surprise.

"Well, I did," Cavanaugh went on, flushed, and in a voice that shook a little. "That prayer of mine was the worst mixed-up mess I ever got off. You see, I never have talked much religion to you boys down home, and as far as I know none of you ever heard me pray out loud in public. Well, I—somehow when I got down to-night I just got to thinking about what you thought—you see, I've heard you sneer at the belief I hold in common with many others, and somehow to-night—well, I found that I was thinking more about what you thought of me than what I was prepared to say, and so I balled it all up. I can do first-rate in meeting at home, but I slid from it to-night. Why, I almost heard Brother Whaley grunt when I suddenly forgot what I started to say and switched off to something else. Oh, I made a fool of myself! Now, really didn't you think so?"

"I didn't hear what you were saying," John answered. "I wouldn't care if I was you."

"Well, I do care," Cavanaugh muttered. "If ever a man insulted his God, I did mine to-night. I was reeling off a lot o' stuff, but not one word of it was from the heart, and a prayer that don't come from the heart ain't worth shucks. Mine wasn't much more than a song and dance before the Throne, and I'm ashamed of it."

"I wouldn't care," John repeated, still absently.

"Well, I don't know as I do care much about what that old hard-shell codger, or his wife that is just like him, thinks, but I do for that little girl. My Lord! ain't she sweet?"

John stared straight and warmly, but said nothing. He was conscious of the intensest interest and that he was trying not to show it.

Cavanaugh stood slowly shaking his head in the negative way that implies affirmation. "Yes, yes, she is a wonderful, wonderful little trick. While she was reading there to-night I seemed to be listening to the voice of an angel that had just come from behind the clouds. I was shedding tears of joy from every pore of my old body. I could have taken her in my arms and cried my heart out. That is why I wish I could have done better in my prayer. What she read was from her soul. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want!' I'll never to my dying day forget them words, and the sweet twist she gave to them. I never had a child, John, and if I could have had one like her, I—I— And just think of it! They make her work like a slave, even with her little hand blistered like it was to-night! Old Whaley thinks he walks side by side with God in all his rules and regulations, but his child is one of God's own glories, and don't you forget it."

Turning suddenly, as if overcome with emotion, Cavanaugh stalked out through the door and crossed the passage into his own room. As John undressed he heard the old man's heavy tread on the floor. A window was raised. There was sudden silence. Cavanaugh was looking out into the starlight.

John was tired, but he remained awake till near midnight. Fancies filled his mind which he had never had before. Why did he think so often of the bride and bridegroom he had seen on the train that morning?

"It is ahead of you, too, my boy," Cavanaugh's words rang in his ears. Could such a thing be for him, really for him? How could it be? He had given no thought to women. He had never dreamed of marriage, but to-night the sheer idea of it was fairly tearing his being to shreds, and the flame of the impulse had risen in the face of a girl—a poor, abused, misunderstood girl. The world lay before him. He would rise in his trade, and earn money which he would lavish on the little filial slave he already adored.

He slept and dreamed that he heard Cavanaugh saying: "It is the cottage of delight, my boy, and it is for you and her—for you and her. Don't forget, for you and her!"

CHAPTER VII

The foundation for the court-house was soon laid. The county officials had announced to Cavanaugh that a day had been appointed for a ceremonious laying of a corner-stone, to which all the countryside had been invited. A block of marble properly marked and dated was ordered and came. The occasion was to be a great one. A brass band was expected from a near-by town. There was to be a barbecue, with speeches and singing from a hastily improvised platform.

John himself supervised the construction of the platform and the long tables upon which the food was to be served.

The day arrived. The weather was most favorable, there being cool breezes from the mountains and sufficient clouds to shut off the heat of the sun. The speakers' stand was hung with flags and decorated with flowers and evergreens. Long trenches had been dug in the earth. Fires had been going in them all day. The dry hickory wood was reduced to live coals and the pork, beef, and lamb were suspended over them. Negro men, expert in the work, were busy turning and basting the meat, the aroma of which floated on the air. A little organ from a near-by church had been placed amid some chairs for choir-singers, and then John discovered that Tilly was expected to play the instrument.

"The regular organist is away," Cavanaugh explained to John, "but I'll bet our little girl will do it all right."

John said nothing, for he had caught sight of Tilly seated with her mother in the front row of benches. She was dressed in white muslin from head to foot. She wore a cheap sailor straw hat he had never seen her wear before, and some flowers were pinned on her breast. The whiteness of her attire seemed to accentuate the rare pinkness of her face, which deepened as she caught his stealthy glance. She was the last of the choir to take her place, the others being seated when she finally went forward, seated herself on the organ-stool, and began to look over the music. How calm and unruffled she seemed to John! On the platform sat a candidate for the Governorship of the state, several ministers, the Ordinary of the county, the Sheriff, an ex-judge, and several other men of prominence, and yet in the eyes of the younger spectators John Trott, who was to place and seal the stone, and stood with a new trowel in his hand, was the most envied person there. He was well dressed, good-looking, possessed with a forceful demeanor, and it was rumored that he was a mason who could demand any wages he liked. It was little wonder that poor young farmers who lived from hand to mouth to eke out an existence should deem him most fortunate, and that the girls should regard him with favor.

John was young; he was human, and he was experiencing a sort of new birth. Aside from Cavanaugh, no one present knew of his mother's reputation or of the social wall between him and the citizens of Ridgeville, and here to-day he was being treated as he had never been treated before. He felt strangely, buoyantly, at his ease. He was too happy to analyze his wonderful transition. He wanted to do his part well, not chiefly on account of Cavanaugh and the contract, or the dignitaries about him, but it must be admitted that above all he was considering Tilly. It pleased the poor boy to think of her as conducting the music, and of himself as having charge of the other details. There was a vague, new, and even confident dignity about his erect figure, face, and tone of voice as he directed the laborers to bring the corner-stone forward. There was a square cavity in the stone into which souvenirs were to be placed, and it devolved upon John to collect them from the audience. He did it well. He was a man drawn out of an old environment by the dazzling experience of being in love. A copy of a fresh issue of the county weekly was handed to him by the paper's editor; the Ordinary contributed a photograph of the old court-house, some one else put in a sheet containing the autographs of leading citizens, and there were coins and various trinkets of more or less historic significance. John placed them in the cavity, and under the eyes of all began to close the opening. His new trowel tinkled softly as he worked in the dead silence on all sides. When it was finished the band played. There was much applause, and then the choir sang. During this part of the program John had a chance to look at Tilly without being seen by her. She sat very erectly at the organ, unabashed, unperturbed. John, even from where he stood at one side, saw the red welt on her hand. He told himself, sentimentally, that those were the same little hands which churned daily, washed dishes, made fires in the range, washed, hung out, and ironed clothes, and he marveled. Once as she turned a page of the music-book she looked at him, seemed in a flash to sense his admiration, and dropped her eyes. Something came into her face which he could not have described, but it played there for an instant like a beam of rose-colored light, and he throbbed and thrilled in his whole being.

The speeches passed off. The band played again and John was asked by the Ordinary to announce that the barbecue was ready to be served at the tables.

John had never spoken in public, and yet to-day a new daring possessed him. Quite unperturbed, he rang his trowel on the corner-stone till quiet was restored, and then, with a half-jest, appropriately worded, he made the announcement. Immediately the audience was on its feet and surging toward the aromatic trenches and tables. The platform was soon vacated, and John saw Tilly alone at the organ, putting up the music-books. He longed to go to her, but a vast and sudden embarrassment checked him. He started, but stopped and pretended to be inspecting the corner-stone. She was behind him now, but she was the light and breath of his new existence and he half saw, half felt her presence. He told himself that she must think him an awkward fool, and yet he could not approach her.

Suddenly he saw something for which he was not prepared. A tall, thin young man with a scant brown mustache and rather long hair, who was tanned like a farmer, and who had large, coarse hands and wore a frock-coat which was thick enough for winter, was stepping upon the platform and approaching Tilly.

"You must come get some of the barbecue," he said. "You are doing most of the work and must be fed. I saw your ma and pa over at the first table."

"I'm not very hungry, Joel," John heard Tilly say, and from the corner of his eyes he saw that she was shaking hands with the young man. A moment later they were passing close behind John. He knew that to pretend still to be inspecting the corner-stone would be absurd and so he turned and faced the couple. Tilly smiled, nodded, and glanced at the stone.

"It is very pretty," she said, pausing and looking at the work he had done. "This is my friend, Mr. Joel Eperson—Mr. Trott," she added.

The hands of two laboring-men met and swung up and down before the little maid. "Pleased to meet you," both men said, and they stared at each other, dumb, concealed thoughts in the depths of their eyes.

"You ran that singing all right." John dug the words from his perturbed self-consciousness. "It went off fine."

"Yes, you certainly did that," the young farmer agreed. "You all must have met and practised."

"Only once, last night," Tilly said. "We met at the church."

"We are going to get some of that barbecue," Eperson said, rather stiffly, to John. "Won't you come along with us? I've got two places reserved and can easily make room for another."

"Two places reserved!" The words had an unpleasant sound to John. Evidently the fellow had been counting on eating with Tilly even before he invited her. John hesitated. He noticed that Tilly had nothing to say, and that irritated him.

"Oh, I'm not a bit hungry," he answered, now in his old, rough, Ridgeville way, and he frowned.

"Well, you might come and see the rest of the animals fed," Eperson jested. "I'd like to talk to you. Tilly wrote me about you coming. I certainly would like to have a job like yours. Farming has gone to pieces in this section."

Tilly had written him. Again John was conscious of irritation and a strange, deep-seated uneasiness. Were the two on such terms of familiarity that they exchanged letters while living so near together? John was still hesitating when Cavanaugh suddenly elbowed his way through the surging throng to his side.

"They expect you and me to set at the Ordinary's table along with the speakers," he announced, momentously. "I've been looking for you all about."

"We just asked him to go with us, Mr. Cavanaugh," Tilly said, "but of course, if the Ordinary wants him we'll have to excuse him." She introduced Eperson, and Cavanaugh smiled.

"I've heard about Mr. Eperson already," he said. "And I'll tell 'im to his face that he has fine taste and knows a good thing in the female line when he sees it."

The young farmer flushed red and smiled, but Tilly's face was unchanged. "I see you are a tease," she said, indifferently. "Well, we'd better be going."

John felt Cavanaugh grasp his arm and begin to lead him through the crowd toward a distant table which was smaller than the others and at which several local dignitaries were seated.

THE COTTAGE OF DELIGHT

Books by

WILL N. HARBEN

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

[Established 1817]

THE

COTTAGE OF DELIGHT

A NOVEL

BY

WILL N. HARBEN

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

CONTENTS

PART I

PART II