Suddenly he brought the car to a stop before the office of a big lumber-yard they were pa.s.sing.
"I"m going in here, kid, for just a minute, to see if I can get a man to put in those part.i.tions."
Elizabeth sat meditatively studying the office window through whose large dusty panes could be seen tall strips of moulding, unpainted window-frames, and a fluted column or two, evidently ready to fill an order. The sign over the door set forth that window-sashes, doors, and blinds were to be had. Suddenly Elizabeth sat up straight and read the sign again, strained her eyes to see through the window, and then opened the car door and sprang out. In a moment more she stood beside her brother, pointing mutely to a large window-frame that stood against the wall.
"What is it, kid?" he asked kindly.
"Sid, why can"t you put on great big windows like that? They would never notice the windows, you know. It would be so nice to have plenty of light and air."
"That"s so," he murmured. "I might change the windows some without its being noticed."
Then to the man at the desk:
"What"s the price of that window? Got any more?"
"Yes," said the man, looking up interested; "got half a dozen, made especially for a party, and then he wasn"t pleased. Claimed he ordered sash-winders "stead of cas.e.m.e.nt. If you can use these six, we"ll make you a special price."
"Oh, take them, Sid! They"re perfectly lovely," said Elizabeth eagerly. "They"re cas.e.m.e.nt windows with diamond panes. They"ll just be so quaint and artistic in that stone!"
"Well, I don"t know how they"ll fit," said the young man doubtfully.
"I don"t want to make it seem as if I was trying to put on too much style."
"No, Sid, it won"t seem that way, really. I tell you they"ll never notice the windows are bigger, and cas.e.m.e.nt windows aren"t like a regular house, you know. See, they"ll open wide like doors. I think it would be just grand!"
"All right, kid, we"ll see! We"ll take the man out with us; and, if he says it can be done, I"ll take them."
Elizabeth was overjoyed.
"That"s just what it needed!" she declared. "They couldn"t live in the dark on rainy days. You must put two in the front on each side the door, and one on each end. The back windows will do well enough."
"Well, come on, kid. Mr. Jones is going out with me at once. Do you want to go with us, or shall I call a taxi and send you home?" asked her brother.
"I"m going with you, of course," said Elizabeth eagerly, hurrying out to the car as if she thought the thing would be done all wrong without her.
So Elizabeth sat in the back seat alone, while her brother and the contractor discoursed on the price of lumber and the relative values of wood and stone for building-purposes, and the big car went back over the way it had been before that afternoon.
They stopped on the way out, and picked up one of Mr. Jones"s carpenters who was just leaving a job with his kit of tools, and who climbed stolidly into the back seat, and sat as far away from the little blue-velvet miss as possible, all the while taking furtive notes to tell his own little girl about her when he went home.
Elizabeth climbed out, and went about the barn with them, listening to all they had to say.
The two men took out pencils and foot rules, and went around measuring and figuring. Elizabeth watched them with bright, attentive eyes, putting a whispered suggestion now and then to her brother.
"They can"t go up and down a ladder all the time," she whispered.
"There ought to be some rough stairs with a railing, at least as good as our back stairs at home."
"How about it?" said Graham aloud to the contractor. "Can you put in some steps, just rough ones, to the left? I"m going to have a party out here camping for a while this summer, and I want it to be safe.
Need a railing, you know, so n.o.body will get a fall."
The man measured the s.p.a.ce up with his eye.
"Just want plain steps framed up with a hand-rail?" he said, squinting up again. "Guess we better start "em up this way to the back wall and then turn back from a landing. That"ll suit the overhead s.p.a.ce best.
Just pine, you want "em, I s"pose?"
Elizabeth stood like a big blue bird alighted on the door-sill, watching and listening. She was a regular woman, and saw big possibilities in the building. She would have enjoyed ordering parquetry flooring and carved newel-posts and making a regular palace.
The sun was setting behind the purply hill and sending a glint from the weather-vane on the little white church spire when they started back to the city. Elizabeth looked wistfully toward it, and wondered about the rapt expression on Shirley"s face when she spoke of "working" in the church. How could one get any pleasure out of that? She meant to find out. At present her life was rather monotonous, and she longed to have some new interests.
That night after she had gone to her luxurious little couch she lay in her downy nest, and tried to think how it would be to live in that big barn and go to sleep up in the loft, lying on that hay. Then suddenly the mystery of life was upon her with its big problems. Why, for instance, was she born into the Graham family with money and culture and all the good times, and that sweet, bright Carol-girl born into the Hollister family where they had a hard time to live at all?
CHAPTER IX
Quite early the next morning Sidney Graham was in his office at the telephone. He conferred with the carpenter, agreeing to meet him out at the barn and make final arrangements about the windows in a very short time. Then he called up the trolley company and the electric company, and made arrangements with them to have a wire run from the road to his barn, with a very satisfactory agreement whereby he could pay them a certain sum for the use of as much light as he needed. This done, he called up an electrician, and arranged that he should send some men out that morning to wire the barn.
He hurried through his morning mail, giving his stenographer a free hand with answering some of the letters, and then speeded out to Glenside.
Three men were already there, two of them stone-masons, working away under the direction of the contractor. They had already begun working at the ma.s.sive stone around the windows, striking musical blows from a light scaffolding that made the old barn look as if it had suddenly waked up and gone to house-cleaning. Sidney Graham surveyed it with satisfaction as he stopped his car by the roadside and got out. He did delight to have things done on time. He decided that if this contractor did well on the job he would see that he got bigger things to do. He liked it that his work had been begun at once.
The next car brought a quartette of carpenters, and before young Graham went back to the city a motor-truck had arrived loaded with lumber and window-frames. It was all very fascinating to him, this new toy barn that had suddenly come into his possession, and he could hardly tear himself away from it and go back to business. One would not have supposed, perhaps, that it was so very necessary for him to do so, either, seeing that he was already so well off that he really could have gotten along quite comfortably the rest of his life without any more money; but he was a conscientious young man, who believed that no living being had a right to exist in idleness, and who had gone into business from a desire to do his best and keep up the honorable name of his father"s firm. So after he had given careful directions for the electric men when they should come he rushed back to his office once more.
The next two days were filled with delightful novelties. He spent much time flying from office to barn and back to the office again, and before evening of the second day he had decided that a telephone in the barn was an absolute necessity, at least while the work was going on.
So he called up the telephone company, and arranged that connection should be put in at once. That evening he wrote a short note to Miss Shirley Hollister, telling her that the part.i.tions were under way and would soon be completed, and that in a few days he would send her the key so that she might begin to transport her belongings to the new home.
The next morning, when Graham went out to the stone barn, he found that the front windows were in, and gave a very inviting appearance to the edifice, both outside and in. As Elizabeth had surmised, the big latticed windows opening inwards like cas.e.m.e.nt doors seemed quite in keeping with the rough stone structure. Graham began to wonder why all barns did not affect this style of window, they were so entirely attractive. He was thoroughly convinced that the new tenants would not be likely to remember or notice the difference in the windows; he was sure he shouldn"t have unless his attention had been called to them in some way. Of course the sills and sashes were rather new-looking, but he gave orders that they should at once be painted an un.o.btrusive dark green which would well accord with the mossy roof, and he trusted his particular young tenant would not think that he had done anything pointed in changing the windows. If she did, he would have to think up some excuse.
But, as he stood at the top of the gra.s.sy slope and looked about, he noticed the great pile of stones under each window, from the masonry that had been torn away to make room for the larger sashes, and an idea came to him.
"Mr. Jones!" he called to the contractor, who had just come over on the car to see how the work was progressing. "Wouldn"t there be stones enough all together from all the windows to build some kind of a rude chimney and fireplace?" he asked.
Mr. Jones thought there would. There were stones enough down in the meadow to piece out with in case they needed more, anyway. Where would Mr. Graham want the fireplace? Directly opposite the front doors? He had thought of suggesting that himself, but didn"t know as Mr. Graham wanted to go to any more expense.
"By all means make that fireplace!" said the young owner delightedly.
"This is going to be a jolly place when it gets done, isn"t it? I declare I don"t know but I"d like to come out here and live."
"It would make a fine old house, sir," said the contractor respectfully, looking up almost reverently at the barn. "I"d like to see it with verandys, and more winders, and a few such. You don"t see many of these here old stone buildings around now. They knew how to build "em substantial in those old times, so they did."
"H"m! Yes. It would make a fine site for a house, wouldn"t it?" said the young man, looking about thoughtfully. "Well, now, we"ll have to think about that sometime, perhaps. However, I think it looks very nice for the present"; and he walked about, looking at the improvements with great satisfaction.
At each end of the barn a good room, long and narrow, had been part.i.tioned off, each of which by use of a curtain would make two very large rooms, and yet the main section of the floor looked as large as ever. A simple stairway of plain boards had been constructed a little to one side of the middle toward the back, going up to the loft, which had been made safe for the children by a plain rude railing consisting of a few uprights with strips across. The darkening slats at the small windows in the loft had been torn away and shutters subst.i.tuted that would open wide and let in air and light. Rough spots in the floor had been mended, and around the great place both up-stairs and down, and even down in the bas.e.m.e.nt underneath, electric wires ran with simple lights and switches conveniently arranged, so that if it became desirable the whole place could be made a blaze of light. The young man did not like to think of this family of unprotected women and children coming out into the country without all the arrangements possible to make them feel safe. For this reason also he had established the telephone. He had talked it over with the agent, paying a certain sum for its installation, and had a telephone put in that they could pay for whenever they desired to use it. This would make the young householder feel more comfortable about leaving her mother out in the country all day, and also prevent her pride from being hurt. The telephone was there. She need not use it unless necessity arose. He felt he could explain that to her. If she didn"t like it, of course she could have it taken away.
There were a lot more things he would like to do to make the place more habitable, but he did not dare. Sometimes even now his conscience troubled him. What did he know about these people, anyway? and what kind of a flighty youth was he becoming that he let a strange girl"s appealing face drive him to such lengths as he was going now?
Telephone, and electric lights, and stairs, and a fireplace in a barn!
It was all perfectly preposterous; and, if his family should hear of it, he would never hear the last of it; that he was certain.
At such times he would hunt up his young sister and carry her off for a long drive in the car, always ending up at Glenside Road, where she exclaimed and praised to his heart"s satisfaction, and gave anew her word not to tell anybody a thing about it until he was ready.
Indeed, Elizabeth was wild with delight. She wanted to hunt up some of her mother"s old Turkish rugs that were put away in dark closets, to decorate the walls with pictures and bric-a-brac from her own room, and to smother the place in flowering shrubs for the arrival of the tenants; but her brother firmly forbade anything more being done. He waited with fear and trembling for the time when the clear-eyed young tenant should look upon the changes he had already made; for something told him she would not stand charity, and there was a point beyond which he must not go if he wished ever to see her again.