The Idyl of Twin Fires Part 14

"But 'The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century?'" said I.

"The whole nineteenth century is on these windows," she replied.

"I've got to scrub here to get at its foundations."

"But you'll get tired again," I laughed, though with real solicitude.

"I didn't want you to come to work--only to be company."

"I don't know how to be company. Please get me some fresh hot water."

I took the pail and fetched obediently. Then, while she worked at the windows, I began tugging things in from the shed, calling Joe from the barn to help me with the desk and bookcases. The desk, obviously, went by the west window, where the light would come from the left. My five bookcases, which had been made for my college rooms, of uniform size, were placed, four along the south wall, filling the s.p.a.ces between the central door and the two windows, and the two windows and the end walls, with the fifth on the west wall between the window and the south, where I could have my reference books close to my desk chair. My piano, which had stood in the dining-room ever since the furniture had arrived, we unboxed, wheeled in to fill the s.p.a.ce between the small east windows, and took the covers off.

I looked around. Already the place was a.s.suming a homelike air, and the long room had contracted into intimacy. The girl dropped her rag into the pail, and stood looking about.

"Oh, the nice room!" she cried. "And oh, the dirty piano!"

I went out to begin on the books, and when I returned with the first load (I used a wheelbarrow, and wheeled a big load covered with my raincoat as far as the front door, and up into the hall on a plank), Miss Goodwin was scrubbing the keys. As I began to wipe off the books and set them into the cases, I could hear that peculiar dust-cloth glissando which denotes domestic operations on the piano, and which brings curiously home to a man memories of his mother. When I returned with the next load, I brought the piano bench, as well. The girl was busy with the east window, and I set the bench down in silence. She was seated upon it, when I arrived with the third load, and through the house were dancing the sounds of a Bach gavotte.

She stopped playing as I entered, and looked up with a little smile of apology.

"Please go on!" I cried.

"But you play," she said, "and I just drum. It's too silly."

"I play with one finger only," said I, "the forefinger of the right hand."

"Then why do you have the piano?"

"For you," I smiled. "Please play on. You can't guess how pleasant it is, how--how--homelike."

She wheeled back and let her hands fall on the keys, rippling by a natural suggestion into the old tune "Amaryllis." The logs were crackling. The gay old measures flooded the room with sound. My head nodded in time, as I stacked the books on the shelves.

Suddenly the music stopped, and with a rustle of skirts the girl was beside me. "There! Now I must help you with the books!" she cried.

"What's this? Oh, you're not putting them up right at all! Here's James's 'Pragmatism' hobn.o.bbing with 'The Freedom of the Will.'

Oh, horrors, and 'Cranford' next to Guy de Maupa.s.sant! I'm sure that isn't proper!"

"On the contrary," said I, "it ought to prove a fine thing for both of them."

She began to inspect t.i.tles, pulling out books here, subst.i.tuting others there, carrying some to other cases. "You won't know where anything is, anyhow, in these new surroundings," she said, "so you might as well start right--separate cases for fiction, history, philosophy, and so on. Please have the poetry over the settle by the fire."

"Surely," said I. "That goes without saying. Here, I'll lug the books in, and you put 'em up. Only I insist on the reference books going over by my desk."

"Yes, sir, you may have them," she laughed.

I wheeled in load after load. "Lord," I cried, "of the making of many books, _et cetera!_ I'll never buy another one, or else I'll never move again."

"You'll never move again, you mean," said she. "Look, all the nice poetry by the west fireplace. Don't the green Globe editions look pretty in the white cases? And Keats right by the chimney. Please, may I put the garden books, and old Mr. Th.o.r.eau, by the east fire?"

"Give old Mr. Th.o.r.eau any seat he wants," said I, "only Mr. Emerson must sit beside him."

"Where's Mr. Emerson? Oh, yes, here he is, in a blue suit. Here, we'll plant the rose of beauty on the brow of chaos!"

She took the set of Emerson and placed it in the top shelf by the east fireplace, above a tumbled heap of una.s.sorted volumes, standing back to survey it with her gurgling laugh. "What is so decorative as books?"

she cried. "They beat pictures or wall paper. Oh, the nice room, the nice books, nice old Mr. Emerson, nice twin fires!"

"And nice librarian," I added.

She darted a look at me, laughed with heightened colour, and herself added, with a glance at her wrist watch, "And nice dinner!"

I brought back some of my ma.n.u.scripts after dinner, in case the room should be completed before supper time. We attacked it again with enthusiasm, hers being no less, apparently, than mine, for it was indeed wonderful to see the place emerge from bareness into the most alluring charm as the books filled the shelves, as my two Morris chairs were placed before the fires, as my three or four treasured rugs were unrolled on the rather uneven but charmingly old floor which just fitted the old, rugged hearthstones, and finally as the two bright Hiroshiges were placed in the centre of the two white wood panels over the fireplaces, and the other pictures hung over the bookcases.

"Wait," cried the girl suddenly. "Have you any vases?"

"A couple of gla.s.s ones," I said. "Why?"

"Get them, and never mind."

I found the barrel which contained breakables in the shed, unpacked it, and brought in the contents--a few vases, my college tea set, a little Tanagra dancing-girl. I placed the dancing figure on top of the shelf between the settles, and Miss Goodwin set the tea things on my one table by the south door. Then she got an umbrella and vanished.

A few minutes later she returned with two clumps of sweet flag blades from the brookside, placed one in each of the small vases, and stood them on the twin mantels, beneath the j.a.panese prints.

"There!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Now what do you think of your room?"

I looked at the young green spears, at the bookcases with their patterns of colour, at the warm rugs on the floor, at my desk ready for me by the window, at the student lamp upon it, at the crimson cushions on the twin settles, at the leaping flames on the hearths, and then at the bright, flushed, eager face of the girl, raindrops glistening in her hair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She was sitting with a closed book on her knee, gazing into the fire]

"I think it is wonderful," said I. "I have my home at last! And how you have helped me!"

"Yes, you have your home," said she. "Oh, it is such a nice one!"

She turned away, and went over to the east fire, poking it with her toe.

I lit my pipe, sat down at my old, familiar desk, heaved a great sigh of comfort, and opened a ma.n.u.script.

"It's only four o'clock," said I. "I can get in that hour I wasted in sleep this morning. Can you find something to read?"

"I ought to," she smiled.

I plunged into the ma.n.u.script--a silly novel. I heard Miss Goodwin on the other side of the settle, taking down a book. I read on. The room was very still. Presently the stillness roused me from my work, and I looked up. I could not see the girl, so I rose from my chair and tiptoed around the settle. She was sitting with a closed book on her knee, gazing into the fire. I sat down, too, and touched her arm.

"What is there?" I asked, pointing to the flames.

She looked around, with a half-wistful little smile. "You are not making up that lost hour," she answered.

"But the room was so still," said I, "that I wondered where you were."

"Perhaps I was many miles away," she replied. "Do you want me to make a noise?"

"You might sing for me."