Sevenoaks Part 22

then he laughed, an' says he: 'Jim, I wish ye good luck, an' I hope ye'll live to have a little feller o' yer own.' An' says I: 'Old Jerusalem! If I ever have a little feller o' my own,' says I, 'this world will have to spread to hold me.'"

Then Jim put his head down between his knees, and thought. When it emerged from its hiding his eyes were moist, and he said:

"Ye must 'scuse me, Mr. Benedict, for ye know what the feelin's of a pa is. It never come to me in this way afore."

Benedict could not help smiling at this new exhibition of sympathy; for Jim, in the comprehension of his feelings in the possible event of possessing offspring, had arrived at a more vivid sense of his companion's bereavement.

"Now, I tell ye what it is," said Jim. "You an' me has got to be brus.h.i.+n' round. We can't set here an' think about them that's gone; an'

now I want to tell ye 'bout another thing that Mr. Balfour said. Says he: 'Jim, if ye're goin' to build a house, build a big one, an' keep a hotel. I'll fill it all summer for ye,' says he. 'I know lots o' folks,'

says he, 'that would be glad to stay with ye, an' pay all ye axed 'em.

Build a big house,' says he, 'an' take yer time for't, an' when ye git ready for company, let a feller know.' I tell ye, it made my eyes stick out to think on't. 'Jim Fenton's hotel! says I. 'I don't b'lieve I can swing it.' 'If ye want any more money'n ye've got,' says he, 'call on me.'"

The idea of a hotel, with all its intrusions upon his privacy and all its diversions, was not pleasant to Mr. Benedict; but he saw at once that no woman worthy of Jim could be expected to be happy in the woods entirely deprived of society. It would establish a quicker and more regular line of communication with Sevenoaks, and thus make a change from its life to that of the woods a smaller hards.h.i.+p. But the building of a large house was a great enterprise for two men to undertake.

The first business was to draw a plan. In this work Mr. Benedict was entirely at home. He could not only make plans of the two floors, but an elevation of the front; and when, after two days of work, with frequent questions and examinations by Jim, his drawings were concluded, they held a long discussion over them. It was all very wonderful to Jim, and all very satisfactory--at least, he said so; and yet he did not seem to be entirely content.

"Tell me, Jim, just what the trouble is," said his architect, "for I see there's something wanting."

"I don't see," said Jim, "jest where ye're goin' to put 'im."

"Who do you mean? Mr. Balfour?"

"No; I don't mean no man."

"Harry? Thede?"

"No; I mean, s'posin'. Can't we put on an ell when we want it?"

"Certainly."

"An' now, can't ye make yer picter look kind o' cozy like, with a little feller playin' on the ground down there afore the stoop?"

Mr. Benedict not only could do this, but he did it; and then Jim took it, and looked at it for a long time.

"Well, little feller, ye can play thar till ye're tired, right on that paper, an' then ye must come into the house, an' let yer ma wash yer face;" and then Jim, realizing the comical side of all this charming dream, laughed till the woods rang again, and Benedict laughed with him.

It was a kind of clearing up of the cloud of sentiment that enveloped them both, and they were ready to work. They settled, after a long discussion, upon the site of the new house, which was back from the river, near Number Ten. There were just three things to be done during the remainder of the autumn and the approaching winter. A cellar was to be excavated, the timber for the frame of the new house was to be cut and hewed, and the lumber was to be purchased and drawn to the river.

Before the ground should freeze, they determined to complete the cellar, which was to be made small--to be, indeed, little more than a cave beneath the house, that would accommodate such stores as it would be necessary to s.h.i.+eld from the frost. A fortnight of steady work, by both the men, not only completed the excavation, but built the wall.

Then came the selection of timber for the frame. It was all found near the spot, and for many days the sound of two axes was heard through the great stillness of the Indian summer; for at this time nature, as well as Jim, was in a dream. Nuts were falling from the hickory-trees, and squirrels were leaping along the ground, picking up the stores on which they were to subsist during the long winter that lay before them. The robins had gone away southward, and the voice of the thrushes was still.

A soft haze steeped the wilderness in its tender hue--a hue that carried with it the fragrance of burning leaves. At some distant forest shrine, the priestly winds were swinging their censers, and the whole temple was pervaded with the breath of wors.h.i.+p. Blue-jays were screaming among leathern-leaved oaks, and the bluer kingfishers made their long diagonal flights from side to side of the river, chattering like magpies. There was one infallible sign that winter was close upon the woods. The wild geese, flying over Number Nine, had called to Jim with news from the Arctic, and he had looked up at the huge harrow sc.r.a.ping the sky, and said: "I seen ye, an' I know what ye mean."

The timber was cut of appropriate length and rolled upon low scaffoldings, where it could be conveniently hewed during the winter; then two days were spent in hunting and in setting traps for sable and otter, and then the two men were ready to arrange for the lumber.

This involved the necessity of a calculation of the materials required, and definite specifications of the same. Not only this, but it required that Mr. Benedict should himself accompany Jim on the journey to the mill, three miles beyond Mike Conlin's house. He naturally shrank from this exposure of himself; but so long as he was not in danger of coming in contact with Mr. Belcher, or with any one whom he had previously known, he was persuaded that the trip would not be unpleasant to him. In truth, as he grew stronger personally, and felt that his boy was out of harm's way, he began to feel a certain indefinite longing to see something of the world again, and to look into new faces.

As for Jim, he had no idea of returning to Number Nine again until he had seen Sevenoaks, and that one most interesting person there with whom he had a.s.sociated his future, although he did not mention his plan to Mr. Benedict.

The ice was already gathering in the stream, and the winter was descending so rapidly that they despaired of taking their boat down to the old landing, and permitting it to await their return, as they would be almost certain to find it frozen in, and be obliged to leave it there until spring. They were compelled, therefore, to make the complete journey on foot, following to the lower landing the "tote-road" that Mike Conlin had taken when he came to them on his journey of discovery.

They started early one morning about the middle of November, and, as the weather was cold, Turk bore them company. Though Mr. Benedict had become quite hardy, the tramp of thirty miles over the frozen ground, that had already received a slight covering of snow, was a cruel one, and taxed to their utmost his powers of endurance.

Jim carried the pack of provisions, and left his companion without a load; so by steady, quiet, and almost speechless walking, they made the entire distance to Mike Conlin's house before the daylight had entirely faded from the pale, cold sky. Mike was taken by surprise. He could hardly be made to believe that the hearty-looking, comfortably-dressed man whom he found in Mr. Benedict was the same whom he had left many months before in the rags of a pauper and the emaciation of a feeble convalescent. The latter expressed to Mike the obligations he felt for the service which Jim informed him had been rendered by the good-natured Irishman, and Mike blushed while protesting that it was "nothing at all, at all," and thinking of the hundred dollars that he earned so easily.

"Did ye know, Jim," said Mike, to change the subject, "that owld Belcher has gone to New Yorrk to live?"

"No."

"Yis, the whole kit an' boodle of 'em is gone, an' the purty man wid 'em."

"Hallelujer!" roared Jim.

"Yis, and be gorry he's got me hundred dollars," said Mike.

"What did ye gi'en it to 'im for, Mike? I didn't take ye for a fool."

"Well, ye see, I wint in for ile, like the rist of 'em. Och! ye shud 'ave seen the owld feller talk! 'Mike,' says he, 'ye can't afford to lose this,' says he. 'I should miss me slape, Mike,' says he, 'if it shouldn't all come back to ye.' 'An' if it don't,' says I, 'there'll be two uv us lyin' awake, an' ye'll have plinty of company; an' what they lose in dhraimin' they'll take out in cussin',' says I. 'Mike,' says he, 'ye hadn't better do it, an' if ye do, I don't take no resk;' an' says I, 'they're all goin' in, an' I'm goin' wid 'em.' 'Very well,' says he, lookin' kind o' sorry, and then, be gorry, he scooped the whole pile, an' barrin' the ile uv his purty s.p.a.che, divil a bit have I seen more nor four dollars."

"Divil a bit will ye see agin," said Jim, shaking his head. "Mike, ye're a fool."

"That's jist what I tell mesilf," responded Mike; "but there's betther music nor hearin' it repaited; an' I've got betther company in it, barrin' Mr. Benedict's presence, nor I've got here in me own house."

Jim, finding Mike a little sore over his loss, refrained from further allusion to it; and Mr. Benedict declared himself ready for bed. Jim had impatiently waited for this announcement, for he was anxious to have a long talk with Mike about the new house, the plans for which he had brought with him.

"Clear off yer table," said Jim, "an' peel yer eyes, Mike, for I'm goin' to show ye somethin' that'll s'prise ye."

When his order was obeyed, he unrolled the precious plans.

"Now, ye must remember, Mike, that this isn't the house; these is plans, as Mr. Benedict has drawed. That's the kitchen, and that's the settin'-room, and that's the cubberd, and that's the bedroom for us, ye know, and on that other paper is the chambers."

Mike looked at it all earnestly, and with a degree of awe, and then shook his head.

"Jim," said he, "I don't want to bodder ye, but ye've jist been fooled.

Don't ye see that divil a place 'ave ye got for the pig?"

"Pig!" exclaimed Jim, with contempt. "D'ye s'pose I build a house for a pig? I ain't no pig, an' she ain't no pig."

"The proof of the puddin' is in the atin', Jim; an' ye don't know the furrst thing about house-kapin'. Ye can no more kape house widout a pig, nor ye can row yer boat widout a paddle. I'm an owld house-kaper, Jim, an' I know; an' a man that don't tend to his pig furrst, is no betther nor a b'y. Ye might put 'im in Number Tin, but he'd go through it quicker nor water through a baskit. Don't talk to me about house-kapin'

widout a pig. Ye might give 'im that little shtoop to lie on, an' let 'im run under the house to slape. That wouldn't be bad now, Jim?"

The last suggestion was given in a tender, judicial tone, for Mike saw that Jim was disappointed, if not disgusted. Jim was looking at his beautiful stoop, and thinking of the pleasant dreams he had a.s.sociated with it. The idea of Mike's connecting the life of a pig with that stoop was more than he could bear.

"Why, Mike," said he, in an injured tone, "that stoop's the place where she's agoin' to set."

"Oh! I didn't know, Jim, ye was agoin' to kape hins. Now, ef you're agoin' to kape hins, ye kin do as ye plase, Jim, in coorse; but ye musn't forgit the pig, Jim. Be gorry, he ates everything that n.o.body ilse kin ate, and then ye kin ate him."

Mike had had his expression of opinion, and shown to his own satisfaction that his judgments were worth something. Having done this, he became amiable, sympathetic, and even admiring. Jim was obliged to tell him the same things a great many times, and to end at last without the satisfaction of knowing that the Irishman comprehended the precious plans. He would have been glad to make a confidant of Mike, but the Irishman's obtuseness and inability to comprehend his tenderer sentiments, repulsed him, and drove him back upon himself.

Then came up the practical question concerning Mike's ability to draw the lumber for the new house. Mike thought he could hire a horse for his keeping, and a sled for a small sum, that would enable him to double his facilities for doing the job; and then a price for the work was agreed upon.