Read Ebook: Marjorie Dean Macy by Chase Josephine

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Ebook has 994 lines and 58008 words, and 20 pages

"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."

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.

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