Peter Part 38

For with Ruth's arms around him, her lips close to his, her boundless enthusiasm filling his soul, the boy's emotions had for the time overcome his judgment. So much so that all the way up in the train he had been "supposing" and resupposing. Even the reply of the town clerk had set his heart to thumping; his uncle had sent some one then! Then came the thought,--Yes, to boom one of his misleading prospectuses--and for a time the pounding had ceased: by no possible combination now, either honest or dishonest, could the two properties be considered one and the same mine.

Again his thoughts went back to Ruth. He knew how keenly she would be disappointed. She had made him promise to telegraph her at once if his own and her father's inspection of the ore lands should hold out any rose-colored prospects for the future. This he had not now the heart to do. One thing, however, he must do, and at once, and that was to write to Peter, or see him immediately on his return. There was no use now of the old fellow talking the matter over with the director; there was nothing to talk over, except a bare hill three miles from anywhere, covering a possible deposit of doubtful richness and which, whether good or bad, would cost more to get to market than it was worth.

They were on the extreme edge of the forest when the final decision was reached, MacFarlane leaning against a rock, the level and tripod tilted against his arm, Jack sitting on a fallen tree, the map spread out on his knees.

For some minutes Jack sat silent, his eyes roaming over the landscape.

Below him stretched an undulating mantle of velvet, laid loosely over valley, ravine and hill, embroidered in tints of corn-yellow, purplings of full-blossomed clover and the softer greens of meadow and swamp. In and out, now straight, now in curves and bows, was threaded a ribbon of silver, with here and there a connecting mirror in which flashed the sun. Bordering its furthermost edge a chain of mountains lost themselves in low, rolling clouds, while here and there, in its many crumplings, were studded jewels of barn stack and house, their facets aflame in the morning light.

Jack absorbed it all, its beauty filling his soul, the sunshine bathing his cheeks. Soon all trace of his disappointment vanished: with Ruth here,--with his work to occupy him,--and this mighty, all-inspiring, all-intoxicating sweep of loveliness spread out, his own and Ruth's every hour of the day and night, what did ore beds or anything else matter?

MacFarlane's voice woke him to consciousness. He had called to him before, but the boy had not heard.

"As I have just remarked, Jack," MacFarlane began again, "there is nothing but an earthquake will make your property of any use. It is a low-grade ore, I should say, and tunnelling and shoring would eat it up.

Wipe it off the books. There are thousands of acres of this kind of land lying around loose from here to the c.u.mberland Valley. It may get better as you go down--only an a.s.say can tell about that--but I don't think it will. To begin sinking shafts might mean sinking one or a dozen; and there's nothing so expensive. I am sorry, Jack, but wipe it out. Some bright scoundrel might sell stock on it, but they'll never melt any of it up into stove plate."

"All right, sir," Jack said at last, with a light laugh. "It is the same old piece of bread, I reckon, and it has fallen on the same old b.u.t.tered side. Uncle Peter told me to beware of bubbles--said they were hard to carry around. This one has burst before I got my hand on it. All right--let her go! I hope Ruth won't take it too much to heart. Here, boy, get hold of this map and put it with the other traps in the wagon.

And now, Mr. MacFarlane, what comes next?"

Before the day was over MacFarlane had perfected his plans. The town was to be avoided as too demoralizing a shelter for the men, and barracks were to be erected in which to house them. Locations of the princ.i.p.al derricks were selected and staked, as well as the sites for the entrance to the shaft, for the machine and blacksmith's shops and for a storage shanty for tools: the Maryland Mining Company's work would require at least two years to complete, and a rational, well-studied plan of procedure was imperative.

"And now, Jack, where are you going to live,--in the village?" asked his Chief, resting the level and tripod carefully against a tree trunk and seating himself beside Jack on a fallen log.

"Out here, if you don't mind, sir, where I can be on top of the work all the time. It's but a short ride for Ruth and she can come and go all the time. I am going to drop some of these trees; get two or three choppers from the village and knock up a log-house like the one I camped in when I was a boy."

"Where will you put it?" asked MacFarlane with a smile, as he turned his head as if in search of a site. It was just where he wanted Jack to live, but he would not have suggested it.

"Not a hundred yards from where we sit, sir--a little back of those two big oaks. There's a spring above on the hill and sloping ground for drainage; and shade, and a great sweep of country in front. I've been hungry for this life ever since I left home; now I am going to have it."

"It will be rather lonely, won't it?" The engineer's eyes softened as they rested on the young fellow, his face flushed with the enthusiasm of his new resolve. He and Ruth's mother had lived in just such a shanty, and not so very long ago, either, it seemed,--those were the happiest years of his life.

"No!" exclaimed Jack. "It's only a step to the town; I can walk it in half an hour. No, it won't be lonely. I will fix up a room for Uncle Peter somewhere, so he can be comfortable,--he would love to come here on his holidays; and Ruth can come out for the day,--she will be crazy about it when I tell her. No, I will get along. If the lightning had struck my ore beds I would probably have painted and papered some musty back room in the village and lived a respectable life. Now I am going to turn savage."

The next day the contracts were signed: work to commence in three months. Henry MacFarlane, Engineer-in-Chief, John Breen in charge of construction.

It was on that same sofa in the far corner of the sitting-room that Jack told Ruth,--gently, one word at a time,--making the best of it, but telling her the exact truth.

"And then we are not going to have any of the things we dreamed about, Jack," she said with a sigh.

"I am afraid not, my darling,--not now, unless the lightning strikes us, which it won't."

She looked out of the window for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. Then she thought of her father, and how hard he had worked, and what disappointments he had suffered, and yet how, with all his troubles, he had always put his best foot foremost--always encouraging her. She would not let Jack see her chagrin. This was part of Jack's life, just as similar disappointments had been part of her father's.

"Never mind, blessed. Well, we had lots of fun 'supposing,' didn't we, Jack. This one didn't come true, but some of the others will and what difference does it make, anyway, as long as I have you," and she nestled her face in his neck. "And now tell me what sort of a place it is and where daddy and I are going to live, and all about it."

And then, to soften the disappointment the more and to keep a new bubble afloat, Jack launched out into a description of the country and how beautiful the view was from the edge of the hill overlooking the valley, with the big oaks crowning the top and the lichen-covered rocks and fallen timber blanketed with green moss, and the spring of water that gushed out of the ground and ran laughing down the hillside, and the sweep of mountains losing themselves in the blue haze of the distance, and then finally to the log-cabin he was going to build for his own especial use.

"And only two miles away," she cried in a joyous tone,--"and I can ride out every day! Oh, Jack!--just think of it!" And so, with the breath of this new enthusiasm filling their souls, a new bubble of hope and gladness was floated, and again the two fell to planning, and "supposing," the rose-glow once more lightening up the peaks.

For days nothing else was talked of. An onslaught was at once made on Carry's office, two doors below Mrs. Hicks, for photographs, plans of bungalows, shanties, White Mountain lean-tos, and the like, and as quickly tucked under Ruth's arm and carried off, with only the permission of the office boy,--Garry himself being absent owing to some matters connected with a big warehouse company in which he was interested, the boy said, and which took him to New York on the early train and did not allow his return sometimes, until after midnight.

These plans were spread out under the lamp on the sitting-room table, the two studying the details, their heads together, MacFarlane sitting beside them reading or listening,--the light of the lamp falling on his earnest, thoughtful face,--Jack consulting him now and then as to the advisability of further extensions, the same being two rooms shingled inside and out, with an annex of bark and plank for Ruth's horse, and a kitchen and laundry and no end of comforts, big and little,--all to be occupied whenever their lucky day would come and the merry bells ring out the joyful tidings of their marriage.

Nor was this all this particularly radiant bubble contained. Not only was there to be a big open fireplace built of stone, and overhead rafters of birch, the bark left on and still glistening,--but there were to be palms, ferns, hanging baskets, chintz curtains, rugs, pots of flowers, Chinese lanterns, hammocks, easy chairs; and for all Jack knew, porcelain tubs, electric bells, steam heat and hot and cold water, so enthusiastic had Ruth become over the possibilities lurking in the 15 X 20 log-hut which Jack proposed to throw together as a shelter in his exile.

CHAPTER XXV

The news of MacFarlane's expected departure soon became known in the village. There were not many people to say good-by, the inhabitants having seen but little of the engineer and still less of his daughter, except as she flew past, in a mad gallop, on her brown mare, her hair sometimes down her back. The pastor of the new church came, however, to express his regrets, and to thank Mr. MacFarlane for his interest in the church building. He also took occasion to say many complimentary things about Garry, extolling him for the wonderful manner in which that brilliant young architect had kept within the sum set apart by the trustees for its construction, and for the skill with which the work was being done, adding that as a slight reward for such devotion the church trustees had made Mr. Minott treasurer of the building fund, believing that in this way all disputes could the better be avoided,--one of some importance having already arisen (here the reverend gentleman lowered his voice) in which Mr. McGowan, he was sorry to say, who was building the masonry, had attempted an overcharge which only Mr. Minott's watchful eye could have detected, adding, with a glance over his shoulder, that the collapse of the embankment had undermined the contractor's reputation quite as much as the freshet had his culvert, at which MacFarlane smiled but made no reply.

Corinne also came to express her regrets, bringing with her a sc.r.a.p of an infant in a teetering baby carriage, the whole presided over by a nurse in a blue dress, white cap, and white ap.r.o.n, the ends reaching to her feet: not the Corinne, the Scribe is pained to say, who, in the old days would twist her head and stamp her little feet and have her way in everything. But a woman terribly shrunken, with deep lines in her face and under her eyes. Jack, man-like, did not notice the change, but Ruth did.

After the baby had been duly admired, Ruth tossing it in her arms until it crowed, Corinne being too tired for much enthusiasm, had sent it home, Ruth escorting it herself to the garden gate.

"I am sorry you are going," Corinne said in Ruth's absence. "I suppose we must stay on here until Garry finishes the new church. I haven't seen much of Ruth,--or of you, either, Jack. But I don't see much of anybody now,--not even of Garry. He never gets home until midnight, or even later, if the train is behind time, and it generally is."

"Then he must have lots of new work," cried Jack in a cheerful tone. "He told me the last time I saw him on the train that he expected some big warehouse job."

Corinne looked out of the window and fingered the handle of her parasol.

"I don't believe that is what keeps him in town, Jack," she said slowly.

"I hoped you would come and see him last Sunday. Did Garry give you my message? I heard you were at home to-day, and that is why I came."

"No, he never said a single word about it or I would have come, of course. What do you think, then, keeps him in town so late?" Something in her voice made Jack leave his own and take a seat beside her. "Tell me, Corinne. I'll do anything I can for Garry and you too. What is it?"

"I don't know, Jack,--I wish I did. He has changed lately. When I went to his room the other night he was walking the floor; he said he couldn't sleep, and the next morning when he didn't come down to breakfast I went up and found him in a half stupor. I had hard work to wake him. Don't tell Ruth,--I don't want anybody but you to know, but I wish you'd come and see him. I've n.o.body else to turn to,--won't you, Jack?"

"Come! of course I'll come, Corinne,--now,--this minute, if he's home, or to-night, or any time you say. Suppose I go back with you and wait.

Garry's working too hard, that's it,--he was always that way, puts his whole soul into anything he gets interested in and never lets up until it's accomplished." He waited for some reply, but she was still toying with the handle of her parasol. Her mind had not been on his proffered help,--she had not heard him, in fact.

"And, Jack," she went on in the same heart-broken tone through which an unbidden sob seemed to struggle.

"Yes, I am listening, Corinne,--what is it?"

"I want you to forgive me for the way I have always treated you. I have--"

"Why, Corinne, what nonsense! Don't you bother your head about such--"

"Yes, but I do, and it is because I have never done anything but be ugly to you. When you lived with us I--"

"But we were children then, Corinne, and neither of us knew any better.

I won't hear one word of such nonsense. Why, my dear girl--"he had taken her hand as she spoke and the pair rested on his knee--"do you think I am--No--you are too sensible a woman to think anything of the kind. But that is not it, Corinne--something worries you;" he asked suddenly with a quick glance at her face. "What is it? You shall have the best in me, and Ruth will help too."

Her fingers closed over his. The touch of the young fellow, so full of buoyant strength and hope and happiness, seemed to put new life into her.

"I don't know, Jack." Her voice fell to a whisper. "There may not be anything, yet I live under an awful terror. Don't ask me;--only tell me you will help me if I need you. I have n.o.body else--my stepfather almost turned me out of his office when I went to see him the other day,--my mother doesn't care. She has only been here half a dozen times, and that was when baby was born. Hush,--here comes Ruth,--she must not know."