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[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 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[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 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[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 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."[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 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."[pg 20] 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,"[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 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,"[pg 22] 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.
