Chapter VIII
I PICK PAINT AND A QUARREL
The next morning at breakfast a burned nose confronted me across thetable, and the possessor ruefully regarded her sore palms.
"No work for you to-day," said I. "You will just have to pick outcolours for me. The painters are coming."
I spoke as if we were old friends. I spoke as if it were the most naturalthing in the world for a young woman to accompany a young man to hishouse and pick out paint for him. I spoke, also, as if I had nevercursed the prospect of petticoats that advise. So soon can one pair ofeyes undo our prejudices, and so easily are the conventions forgotten,in the natural life of the country--at least by such persons as neverwere much bothered by them, anyhow!
Evidently they had never greatly troubled Miss Goodwin, or she was notdisposed to let them trouble her now, for ten minutes later we wentdown the road together, and found the painters already unloading theirwagon. The reliable Hard Cider, true to his word, had procured themfor me, which, as I afterward have discovered, was something of a feat inBentford, where promises are more common than fulfilment.
"It seems a pity to paint the outside of the house," said Miss Goodwin;"it's such a lovely weathered gray now. What colour is it going to be?"
"No colour," said I. "White, with green blinds, of course. But theinside will be done first."
We entered, with the boss painter, and went into the south room, whichhad already become the natural centre of the house.
"Now," said I, "I'm not going to paper any rooms if I can help it. Iwant the walls calcimined. They look pretty sound to me, barring someplaces where you'll have to patch the plaster. Can it be done?"
The painter walked about the room carefully, then examined the hall, thenorth room, and the dining-room, while the girl and I followed him.
"Sure," he said.
"All right; then I want this room done first, as I'm anxious to getmy books unpacked and my desk set up. Now, what colour shall it be?" Iturned toward Miss Goodwin as I spoke.
She shook her head. "I'm not going to say a word," she answered."This is your room."
"I suppose you want the woodwork white?" the painter suggested. "Thoseold mantels, for instance."
"Cream white, not dead white," said I. "Wait a minute." I ran tothe shed and brought back two more of my pictures, an etching by Cameronwhich our professor of fine arts had once given me, and an oil paintingacquired in a moment of rash expenditure several years before--the longline of Beacon Street houses across the Charles with the church spiresrising here and there, and to the left Beacon Hill piling up to thegolden dome of the State House.
"Now," said I, "the walls have got to set off both these pictures, andbooks besides. They've got to be neutral. I want a greenish, brownish,yellowish olive, with the old beam in the centre of the ceiling in thesame key, only a bit darker."
The girl and the painter both laughed.
"You are so definite," said she.
"But I want an indefinite tint," I replied.
Again she laughed, though the painter looked puzzled.
"I'll get my colours," he said.
He mixed what he considered an olive tint, and laid a streak of it onthe plaster.
"Too green," said I.
He added something and tried again.
"Too gray," said Miss Goodwin, forgetful, and then quicklysupplemented, "isn't it?"
He added something else.
"Too brown," said I.
Once more he patiently mixed.
"Too muddy coloured," I corrected.
"It must be fun to be a painter," said the girl.
"Oh, we get used to it," said he.
"Try a little yellow," I suggested. "I want that tint warmed up atrifle."
He did so, and something emerged which looked right to me.
"That's a queer olive, though," said the girl.
"Well, it's a greenish, brownish, yellowish olive, isn't it?" Ireplied. "That's what I asked for! Do the walls in this colour, andpaint the woodwork, mantels, and the panels over them and the bookcaseand settles a creamy white, with a creamy white on the ceiling, and oilup this old floor and stain the strip of new boards where the partitionwas, and my room is ready!"
We went into the little hall, where the front door stood open, and wecould see Hard on a ladder mending the beautiful carved door cap outside.
"This hall the same colour," said I, "with the rails of the balusterin the cream white of the trim."
We went into the northeast room and the dining-room behind it.
"Same colour here?" asked the painter.
I was about to answer yes, when Miss Goodwin spoke. "I should thinkyou'd want these rooms lighter in colour," she said, "as they facethe north."
"The lady's right," said the painter.
"They always are," I smiled. "You two fix up the colour for this room,then. We can decide on the other rooms after these downstairs are done."
"No," cried the girl, "I won't do anything of the kind! You mightnot like what I picked."
"Incredible!" said I. "I've really got to get to work outside now."And I ran off, leaving her looking a little angrily, I thought, after me.
I was so impatient to see how my lawn was going to look that I wentto the shed to hunt up a dummy sundial post which I could set up andmark off my beds around it, getting them manured for planting. At firstI could find nothing, except some old logs, but looking up presentlyinto a loft under the eaves, I saw the dusty end of what looked like aDoric pillar poking out. I scrambled up and pulled forth, to my joy,a wooden pillar about nine feet long, in excellent preservation. How itgot there, I had no idea. The dust had evidently accumulated on it foryears. It had once been painted white. I dragged the heavy column down,and ran to get Hard Cider.
He grunted. "All yer side porch pillars wuz them kind when I wuz aboy," he said. "Old man Noble's fust wife didn't like theporch--thought it kept light out o' the kitchen, an' hed it took down.His second wife hed it put back, but some o' the columns hed got lost,or burnt up, I reckon, so's they put it back with them square postsyer hev now. I reckon that column's nigh on a century old."
I sawed off the upper four feet carefully, and stowed the remainderback in the loft. Then I made a square base of planking, a temporaryone till I could build a brick foundation, washed off the dust, andtook my pedestal around to the lawn. With a ball of twine tied to thecentre of the south room door I ran a line directly out to the rosetrellis, and midway between the trellis and where the edge of my pergolawas to be I placed the pillar. Then I took out my knife, and thrust theblade lightly in at an angle, to simulate the dial marker, and turnedto call Miss Goodwin.
But she was already standing in the door.
"Oh!" she cried, running lightly down the plank and across the ground,"a sundial already, and a real pedestal! Come away from it a little,and see how it seems to focus all the sunlight."
We stood off near the house, and looked at the white column inmid-lawn. It did indeed seem to draw in the sunlight to this level spotbefore the dwelling, even though it rose from the brown earth insteadof rich greensward, and even though beyond it was but the unsightly,half-finished, naked trellis. Even as we watched, a bird came swoopingacross the lawn, alighted on my knife handle, and began to carol.
"Oh, the darling!" cried Miss Goodwin. "He understands!"
I was very well content. I had unexpectedly found a pedestal, and wasexperiencing for the first time the real sensation of garden warmth andintimacy and focussed light which a sundial, rightly placed, can bring.I did not speak, and presently beside me I heard a voice saying, "ButI forgot that I am angry at you."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you had no right to leave me to pick out the paint for yourdining-room," said she.
"Why not?" said I. "You picked out the name of my house and the styleof the rose trellis."
"That was different," she replied.
"I don't see why."
"Then you are extremely stupid," she ans
wered.
"Doubtless," said I. "But that doesn't help me any to understand,you know."
"Come," she replied, "and see if the paint suits you. Then I must gohome and write some letters."
The paint and calcimine tint suited me, of course. They were a warm,golden cream and a very delicate buff, which made the rooms seem lighter.I thanked her as heartily as I could, and watched her depart up theroad, pausing only long enough to press to her nose the first bud onthe great lilac tree at the corner.
The place seemed curiously deserted after she had gone. I went out intothe vegetable area to see if Mike and Joe were getting on all right, andto watch them planting, that I might learn how it was done.
"Aren't we pretty late with all these seeds?" I asked.
Mike shook his head. "There's some things, like peas, ye can't getin too soon," he said, "and some like termaters and cauliflowers thatye got to start under glass; but up here in these mountains, with thefrosts comin' and the cold nights, ye don't know when, ye can waittill the middle o' May and dump on the manure and get yer crop withthe next man."
"Well, I'm trusting you," said I. "But next year we'll startearlier, just the same. I don't want to be with the next man. I want tobeat him. I don't see why that isn't what a farmer should do as wellas a merchant."
"Sure, it is," said Mike, "only the God almighty don't like it, andsinds frosts down upon yer presoomin'."
"You talk like a Calvinist," I laughed.
"Sure, I dunno what that is," Mike replied. "How much of this lastplantin' of corn shall I put in? It's Stowell's Evergreen. Maybe it'sthe frosts will get it all, come September."
"We'll take a chance," said I. "I'm a gambler. Put in all you'vegot room for."
"Yes, sor," said he, "and it's pea brush we'll be needin' soon forthem early peas I planted late. Is it Joe I shall sind to cut some inthe pasture lot behind the barn?"
I hadn't thought of my ten-acre pasture across the road. In fact, I hadscarcely been in it. "What's there to cut?" I asked.
"Poverty birch," said Mike. "Sure, it's walkin' up from the brooklike it was a weed, which it are, and eatin' the good grass up. Thepasture will be better for it out."
"Cut away, then," said I. "But, mind you, no other trees!"
I went back to my sundial, between two rows of cauliflower plants Berthad given to me, and which Mike had set out thus early for an experiment,between threads of sprouting radishes, lines of onion sets, and othersucculent evidences of the season to come. As I started to mark out thebeds around the pedestal, I found myself wishing Miss Goodwin werethere to advise me. I made a few marks on the ground, surveyed thepattern, didn't like it, could think of nothing better, and resolvedto await her return. I took a few steps toward the house. Then I stopped.
"No, you fool," I said to myself. "This is your house. You are goingto live in it. If you can't plan it yourself, you'd better go back toteaching."
I returned to the dial and went to work again. She had suggested aring of low flowers, and some taller ones, irregularly set. I measuredoff a six-foot circle about the pedestal, as the inner ring of thebeds, and left four breaks in it, to the four cardinal points of thecompass, where the turf or paths could come in to the dial. Then Iextended the sides of these four beds on the straight axes of the pathsfor three feet, and made the rear sides not on the regular arc of theinner edges, but full of irregularities, almost of bulges, where Iwould set clumps of tall flowers. "She'll like that, I guess," Ireflected, and then caught myself at it, and grinned rather sheepishly.
I rose and went to the barn for a load of manure. The great pile whichhad been there when I bought the place was already used up, but Isecured enough litter with a rake to cover the beds and brought itback. By then the hour was nearly twelve, and consequently too lateto spade it under, so I went into the house to see if the painterswere getting the colour right. They were, or as nearly right as itseems to be humanly possible for house painters to do, and I plodded upthe road to dinner. As I passed my potato field, I saw rows of greenshoots above the ground, and out under my lone pine I saw a figure,sitting in the shadow on the stone wall.
I climbed through the brambles over the wall, and walked down the aislesof potatoes toward her.
"It is time for dinner," I said meekly.
She looked up. "Is it? I have been listening to the old pine talk."
"What was he saying?" I asked.
"Things you wouldn't understand," said she.
"About words in 'hy'?"
She shook her head. "Not at all; nothing quite so stupid--but nearlyas saddening." She rose to her feet, and her eyes looked into mine,enigmatically wistful.
"I missed you after you went away from Twin Fires," said I suddenly."I don't know whether I got the sundial beds right or not. Won'tyou please come back to tell me? Or am I stupid again, and mustn'tyou advise me about that?"
Her eyes twinkled a little. "You are still very stupid," she said,"but perhaps I will consent to give my invaluable advice on thisimportant subject."
"Good!" I cried. "And we'll build some more trellis if your hands arebetter."
"My hands are all right," she said, with the faintest emphasis onthe noun, which made a variety of perplexing interpretations possibleand kept me silent as I helped her over the wall into Bert's greatcauliflower field, and we tramped through the soft soil toward the house.