"It will look all right when it is washed down with acid," he mused2. "That will straighten the lines and tone it up."
He was too late for the car and walked home. He found Jane Holder3 in the kitchen, preparing supper. She was a slight woman of thirty-five, dark, erect4, with brown, twinkling eyes and short chestnut5 hair which had not regained6 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 plumb7 out of joint8. 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 brag9 blacks, and she dropped me and my work to get ready. She is always doing me that way. She makes[Pg 16] 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 grunted10 and turned away. He had not heard half she said. On the back porch was a tin wash-basin and a cedar11 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 quaint12, half-querulous voice. "While I was milking, she turned around to see her calf13 and mashed14 me against the fence. I pushed and pushed, but I couldn't move her. Once I thought my breath was gone entirely15. 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 complexion16. Some woman told her—"
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 tattered18 cotton towel. "It is damp," she explained, apologetically. "I ironed them in a hurry when they were too wet. They ought to[Pg 17] 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 ragged19 ones for us."
"You forgot something you promised to do, brother John," she added, timidly, as he stood vigorously wiping his face and neck.
"Why, you promised to send a nigger to cut me some stove-wood and kindling21. 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 scraps22 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 devout23 Methodist, was, while deluded24, decidedly[Pg 18] 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 ascending26 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 plunged27 again into his work.
Finally it was concluded, and he folded the sheets on which he had written so clearly and so accurately28 and went to bed. It was an hour before he went to sleep. He could still hear the low mumbling29, 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 decided25 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 rugged30 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, sweeping31, 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."[Pg 19]
"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 awfully32 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 abide33 by your judgment34 and still he is afraid you may have your sights too high. You see, he says some of the biggest contractors35 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."[Pg 20] John turned away. "Just hand 'em to him," he said, from the little sagging37 gate, "and tell him that is my final estimate. If he wants to change it he may do so. I'm acting38 on my best judgment."
Half an hour later, as John was on the scaffold at work, Cavanaugh crossed the street and slowly ascended39 the ladders and runways till he stood on the narrow platform at the young mason's side. He held a long envelop40 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 mortar41-filled niche42 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 contractor36 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 sneered43. "He thinks he knows something about building, but he is as green as a gourd44. 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,"[Pg 21] 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 baggy45 trousers and automatically broke off a tiny bit and put it into his hesitating mouth:
"I want that job, John," he faltered46, 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 skilfully47 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 standing48 on his tiptoes, leaning over and carefully plumbing49 the wall on the outside.
"Yes, I'm going to drop it in the post-office right now,"[Pg 22] Cavanaugh said, as he started down the planks50. "After all, there may be a hundred bids sent in, and some of the bidders51 may have all sorts of political pulls."
Again John seemed not to hear. He was tapping a protruding52 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 applied53 his plumb to the wall and eyed it critically.
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1
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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14
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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32
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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33
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
envelop
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| vt.包，封，遮盖；包围 | |
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41
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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42
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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43
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
gourd
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| n.葫芦 | |
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45
baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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46
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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47
skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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48
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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49
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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50
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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51
bidders
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| n.出价者，投标人( bidder的名词复数 ) | |
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52
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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53
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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