CHAPTER VIII
Joycesat up startled and peered furtively from her window.
The man was outside waiting to board the car. He was big and red and ugly, with bold blue eyes and red hair. He had a weak mouth and a cruel jaw, and she couldn’t help shrinking into her corner as she looked. Suppose he had been the one to catch her and hold her hands in a vise-like grip last night! Her soul turned sick within her.
He came up the steps prating in a loud voice about women, called them “dames” and “skirts,” and his laughter was an offense. Laughter is like smells, it can be fragrant as the morning or it can be foul as the breath of a gutter. This man’s laughter was like a noxious gas.
Joyce would have fled if the aisle had not been blocked either way. Failing in that she shrank still further back in her seat, drew her hat over her eyes, and found herself trembling in every fibre. Why did such a man have to be on the earth, she wondered as she heard his voice going on in coarse remarks. And what possible companionship, even in business, could he have with the man she knew, whom she had always thought fine of soul?
The stab of that question came into her morning with renewed sharpness as she was compelled to sit and listen, as were all the rest of the passengers in the car, to this crude man’s conversation.
There was nothing to fear of course, for it was broad daylight and there were plenty of men in the car whosefaces told that they would defend her. They might be all common workingmen, but they had homes and mothers and wives and sisters and they respected them. There was a kind of nobleness in their faces that made one sure of that.
Joyce sat motionless and tried to still the trembling of her lips, tried to control the foolish desire to let the tears come into her eyes, tried to tell herself she was silly, and only needed her breakfast and there was no sense in her giving way to her feelings like this. This man did not know her. He had no idea that she had been the intruder at his midnight work. Oh, that work—that terrible work! What was it that bound these men together, the one so coarse, the other who had always seemed so fine? It haunted her with dark possibilities. Some money making scheme of course it was. But—it must be something terrible! She could not forget the look, the droop of the man in the darkness, when she had asked him about it.
And this other one. He must live somewhere near where he had boarded the car. He was not any one from Meadow Brook. The business was a partnership with strangers, yet the one she knew had been the captain, the head of it all. It was his voice that had given the orders, that had told them to go back and not come after her. Why should he be bound up in something that all too clearly was illicit—something of which he was ashamed? How she wished she had not had to know this about her one time friend. Of course she had not seen him much since the old school days—but it had never seemed possible that anything gruesome, mysterious,—wrong, could beconnected with him. It would have been much pleasanter to have gone away from home carrying with her to the end of life the pleasant thoughts of those she left behind, those who were connected in any way with the dearness of the old days.
But this was no time to think of such things. The morning was full upon them in a flood of sunshine, and the car was coming to a halt at what seemed like some kind of a terminal. There was a platform, and a shed-like shelter, and the entire car arose as one man and crowded out on the platform. Joyce waited until they were gone and slipping out the other end went around the back of the car, crossed the tracks and walked rapidly up a side street, rejoicing to hear the hum of the cross line trolley for which the men seemed to be waiting. It would be good to know that that dreadful man was gone.
On the first corner was a small grocery whose door was just being unlocked by a sleepy looking lad, and Joyce went in and bought a box of crackers and some cheese. This would reinforce her and save time. She wanted to get well out of this region before people began to be about much. She did not care to run any risk of meeting any one she knew who would go back home and talk about it.
So, munching her crackers and cheese, she walked briskly down the street, a new one evidently, filled with rows of neat two-story houses, some of which were not yet fully finished, for workmen were about and signs were up for rent and sale.
At a broader cross street she turned the corner and came full upon a band of men who were working awayat a sewer that was being laid, and suddenly from out of the group arose the noxious laughter of the red-haired man of the trolley. She stopped as if she had been shot, and wheeled, back to the quieter street of the small houses. But not back in time to escape the mocking words that were flung after her:
“There she comes! That’s my girlie! Isn’t she a pippin? Oh, don’t run away darling! I won’t let the naughty men hurt you!”
Words could not describe the taunting tone nor her horror, as if she had been desecrated. She was trembling and the tears were flowing down her cheeks as she fled, block after block without knowing whither she went. It seemed so degrading that she could not rally her usual common sense. She began to wonder if perhaps all this was to teach her that she ought not to have gone away from home? That she should have remained and borne all there was to bear and just waited until relief came. But at that her sound sense came to her rescue and she began to breathe more freely.
She had passed into quite another section of the city now, and trolleys were coming and going and plenty of people on the streets. She boarded one of the cars and rode until it came to a railroad station where she got off and went in. There was a restaurant here where she could get a glass of milk, and there was a rest room where she might tidy herself and sit down and get her bearings. She would study the time-tables and find out where to go intelligently. This running away hit or miss might only lead her in a circle and bring her back home before night.
So she went in and asked some questions, finally buying a ticket to a small town about a hundred miles away. Half an hour later, she boarded the train, having added to her crackers and cheese, an orange and a couple of bananas for lunch.
It was a way train and slow, and Joyce curled up in her seat and had a good, long nap, then woke to eat her lunch and sleep again. She had thought to plan out a campaign for herself, make some definite outline in her mind of what she would do with the future so suddenly opened out before her, but sleep simply dropped down upon her and took possession. The strain under which she had been, the sudden sharp emotions following one upon the other had stretched her endurance almost to the breaking point and relaxation brought such utter weariness that she could not even think.
Something was the matter with the engine and they stayed on a side track for a long time while men rushed about shouting to one another and doing things to the engine and now and again seemingly to the machinery underneath the cars, but it all made no impression on Joyce. She slept on, curled into a slim little heap in her seat. After a long time a train came by from the other direction, bringing aid perhaps, for it halted, and then there were more poundings and shoutings, and at last the train went on and Joyce’s train groaned and creaked and took up its limping way, lumbering slowly on like a person on crutches. About the middle of the afternoon, they came to a halt, and Joyce, sitting up suddenly warned by some inner consciousness, perceived she had arrived at the place she had aimed for, and got out quickly.
She had been told in the city that there would be an electric connection with another city, and sure enough, there stood a rickety old trolley in which she embarked, the only passenger for more than half the way.
Half an hour’s ride brought her through a lovely rolling country, past country clubs, and estates, and into the real farming district again, then more country clubs, and scattering bungalows and cottages, till it seemed evident that she was on the outskirts of a new suburb of the city that was just being developed.
It might have been the pretty little church, covered with vines and wearing the air of having been there before the bungalows came, that gave her the sudden impulse, or perhaps it was the well kept hedges and the general atmosphere of hominess that pervaded the pleasant streets. She decided to get out and see the place. She was tired of travel in the stuffy, rickety old car, and at least she could get into another car after she had walked a while if she found no place that seemed livable.
She got out and followed down a pleasant shaded street of homes, at first drinking in the beauty of the well kept lawns and newly painted gardens and hedge rows, turning corners and admiring bits of stone dwellings, bungalows, all on one floor with charming variance of rough stone pillars and porches. Turning two or three corners thus, she came upon what seemed to be a large estate, an old stone house far back from the road almost hidden by wonderful trees and dense, clustering shrubbery. It had the air of having been a fine old house of a time past, probably the original estate from which the whole town had been divided, and down at the corner in a little V of landwhere three roads came together and divided, the land sloped from a high wall of hedge, with a tiny gravelled path to the sidewalk, there stood the dearest little land office that ever a developing operation dared to build. It was not more than nine or ten feet long and six or seven feet wide, but it had five windows and a door, and the tiniest little front porch with a seat on each side as perfect and complete as any little house that ever was built. A vine had clambered over the portico and spread to cover one entire end, and there were window boxes in the front windows where flowers had grown the past year, though weeds were overrunning them now.
As she drew nearer Joyce perceived that it had a neglected air as if no one owned it or the owner was away and didn’t care, and it seemed somehow so much like her own forlorn self, hunting a home and a place in life, that her heart went out to it wistfully.
Then strangest of all just as she was feeling that way she turned the sharp point of the corner and saw two men working about it at the back, and perceived one of them raise a heavy implement and deal a tremendous blow at the little dwelling sitting so cozily there on the little knoll, with such a smiling, inviting air, doing its best to urge people to buy lots and build in this pleasant town.
The little building shivered in all its timbers, and the sound with which it reacted to the blow seemed something between a groan and a sob. Joyce stood still with horror in her eyes, and then the man raised the heavy iron and swung it back for another blow.
But Joyce, without knowing what she was doing, was all at once by his side:
“Oh!” she cried putting out a detaining hand upon the exact spot where the iron must strike, “Oh!Don’t!”
The man paused in his motion and looked at her in wonder, his iron on his shoulder:
“Ma’am?” he said astonished, “Did you speak?”
“Yes,” said Joyce shyly, “Why are you doing that? You will ruin the little house.”
“Them was the boss’ orders, ma’am. Wreck it. That’s what I’m here for.”
“But—Why? It’s a perfectly good little house.”
“He wants to clear this here corner, ma’am, and set the hedge out all the way around like the rest. He don’t want no office here any more, he’s bought the place. He said to get this out of the way the easiest way we knowed how. I’m obeyin’ orders, ma’am!”
The man raised his arm for another blow and intimated by his glance that he would be pleased if the lady would move a little further away and give him more room to strike. But Joyce only stepped nearer in her earnestness:
“Wouldn’t he, do you think he might—perhaps—sellit?” she asked eagerly.
The two men looked at one another amusedly. This was a queer, new kind of a girl. But they were dwellers near a great city and there were all kinds in a city. Their problem was to get rid of this one and go on with their work as soon as possible. The second man took the initiative:
“Lady,” he said stepping up with authority, “The boss is on his way to Europe an’ we gotta git this here building out o’ this piece of ground before we quit tonight. That’s my contract, an’ I generally manage to keep mycontrac’s. That’s how I keep my reputashun—gettin’ things done when I say I will.”
Joyce drew her brows together thoughtfully:
“What are you going to do with this building?” she asked.
“Break her up an’ cart her off. Got a man cornin’ in an hour to clean her up fer the kindlin’ wood. We ain’t got no time to waste, lady.”
“Then the house is yours? To do as you please with?” Her eyes persisted, looking at the men earnestly.
“Wal, it amounts to that. Yas, it’s ourn.”
“Well, then, wouldn’t you sell it?”
“But I tell you lady, the house has gotta git off’n this here piece o’ ground before tomorra mornin’ ’r I lose my big contract on the rest o’ this job.”
“Couldn’t it be moved?” persisted Joyce. “They move houses even bigger than that. I’ve seen them.”
“Aw, yes, she could be moved. A course she could be moved ef you had a place to put her.”
“I will get a place,” said Joyce decidedly. “What will you sell the building for?”
The men looked at one another nonplussed:
“I guess we’d take five bucks apiece, wouldn’t we, Tom?” said the older of the men winking slowly.
“Sure,” said Tom. “But she’s gotta get outta here this arternoon.”
Joyce looked anxiously about her as if she hoped to find a bit of handy land close by:
“How much time have I?” she asked. “I’ll have to hunt a place. I’m sure there’s one somewhere. Do you know where I could get a mover?”
The men grew interested. She really meant business. Well, five bucks was five bucks of course, and if she really wanted the house, why they didn’t mind earning double money and getting a bit of a rest in the bargain. They looked at each other again, a long meaningful glance:
“I guess Sam would fix her up, wouldn’t he, Tom? I guess he wouldn’t overcharge her for movin’, would he? He’s got the big jacks along today, ain’t he? An’ she ain’t very big—”
“What do you think he would charge?” gasped Joyce awaiting the answer as if her very life depended upon it. It seemed as though she just couldn’t bear to lose that little house! It seemed as though it had just been made for her need, and she found her heart praying, “Oh, heavenly Father, please make it possible, please make it possible!”
“Oh, he wouldn’t charge you much ef you didn’t go too fur. But I don’t think you ken git enny land. It’s all took up about here.”
“How much time will you give me?” asked Joyce impatiently, anxiety growing in her face.
“Well, we oughtta be pullin’ out o’ here in about a nour,” said the older man. “The truck don’t leave fur a nour an’ a quarter. We’ll say a nour an’ ten minutes. That oughtta give you time.”
“Oh!” gasped Joyce and flew down the street looking about her on either side, and leaving the men gaping after her.
“Well, all I gotta say is,” said Tom after gazing for some minutes, “she’s some new kind of a nut! Do youreckon to wait fer her to come back, er shall I go on bustin’ her up?”
The older man dropped down comfortably on the grass and took out his pipe. “A bargain’s a bargain, Tom,” he said cupping his hands around the match, “I allus keeps my contrac’s.”
“H’m!” said Tom, dropping stiffly beside him, “But sposen she don’t come back?”
“She’ll come back,” said the other.
“But sposen she can’t find no land?”
“It’s my opinion, Tom, that she’s one o’ them kind, that ef she can’t find no land she’llmakea little bit. I’ve seen ’em before, an’ they can bamboozle the eye teeth out of a tightwad ef they really try. She’s really tryin’ now. She wants this here cottage bad, an’ I intend she’ll have it.”
Tom squinted his eyes and observed his chief thoughtfully remarking after a while:
“H’m!”
Pretty soon the chief arose, took up his implements of work and went up to the little house. He studied the foundation for a few moments and then he began with his pick to work about it, loosening the stones in which it was set. Tom arose and followed him, watching his movements a moment. Then he raised his eyes to the side of the little structure as if for the first time he observed it as a dwelling, a housing place for a human being.
“That’s a purty vine,” he observed, “too bad it has to die.”
“It ain’t agoin’ to die,” said the chief. “We’re agoin’ to save it. Where’s that there big lard kettle we bed around here? See ef it’s inside the hedge.”
Tom foraged behind the hedge and brought a battered tin can.
The chief dug carefully about the roots of the vine, in a good-sized circle, dug it deeply and neatly and together they lifted the roots of the vine with the earth firmly about it, and fitted it into the lard kettle.
“Now, we’ll hev to work it so’s this here don’t git disturbed when we move her,” said the chief.
Tom found a bit of board and some nails among their tools behind the hedge, and made a little shelf on the side of the building upon which they set the can, nailing it firmly to the house so that it would not be disturbed.
Then with deep satisfaction the two set about preparing the building for its removal.