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you can open a trap-door and drop her through!"
Claude flung down his pick and ran up the ladder. "Enid's not going to have notions of that sort," he said
wrathfully.
"Well, you needn't get mad. I'm glad to hear it. I was sorry when the other girl went. It always looked to me
like Enid had her face set for China, but I haven't seen her for a good while,--not since before she went off to
Michigan with the old lady."
After Leonard was gone, Claude returned to his work, still out of humour. He was not altogether happy in his
mind about Enid. When he went down to the mill it was usually Mr. Royce, not Enid, who sought to detain
him, followed him down the path to the gate and seemed sorry to see him go. He could not blame Enid with
any lack of interest in what he was doing. She talked and thought of nothing but the new house, and most of
her suggestions were good. He often wished she would ask for something unreasonable and extravagant. But
she had no selfish whims, and even insisted that the comfortable upstairs sleeping room he had planned with
such care should be reserved for a guest chamber.
As the house began to take shape, Enid came up often in her car, to watch its growth, to show Claude samples
of wallpapers and draperies, or a design for a window-seat she had cut from some magazine. There could be
no question of her pride in every detail. The disappointing thing was that she seemed more interested in the
house than in him. These months when they could be together as much as they pleased, she treated merely as a
period of time in which they were building a house.
Everything would be all right when they were married, Claude told himself. He believed in the transforming
power of marriage, as his mother believed in the miraculous effects of conversion. Marriage reduced all
women to a common denominator; changed a cool, self-satisfied girl into a loving and generous one. It was
quite right that Enid should be unconscious now of everything that she was to be when she was his wife. He
told himself he wouldn't want it otherwise.
But he was lonely, all the same. He lavished upon the little house the solicitude and cherishing care that Enid
seemed not to need. He stood over the carpenters urging the greatest nicety in the finish of closets and
cupboards, the convenient placing of shelves, the exact joining of sills and casings. Often he stayed late in the
evening, after the workmen with their noisy boots had gone home to supper. He sat down on a rafter or on the
skeleton of the upper porch and quite lost himself in brooding, in anticipation of things that seemed as far
away as ever. The dying light, the quiet stars coming out, were friendly and sympathetic. One night a bird
flew in and fluttered wildly about among the partitions, shrieking with fright before it darted out into the dusk
through one of the upper windows and found its way to freedom.
When the carpenters were ready to put in the staircase, Claude telephoned Enid and asked her to come and
show them just what height she wanted the steps made. His mother had always had to climb stairs that were
too steep. Enid stopped her car at the Frankfort High School at four o'clock and persuaded Gladys Farmer to
drive out with her.
When they arrived they found Claude working on the lattice enclosure of the back porch. "Claude is like
Jonah," Enid laughed. "He wants to plant gourd vines here, so they will run over the lattice and make shade. I
can think of other vines that might be more ornamental."
Claude put down his hammer and said coaxingly: "Have you ever seen a gourd vine when it had something to
One of Ours 73
climb on, Enid? You wouldn't believe how pretty they are; big green leaves, and gourds and yellow blossoms
hanging all over them at the same time. An old German woman who keeps a lunch counter at one of those
stations on the road to Lincoln has them running up her back porch, and I've wanted to plant some ever since I
first saw hers."
Enid smiled indulgently. "Well, I suppose you'll let me have clematis for the front porch, anyway? The men
are getting ready to leave, so we'd better see about the steps."
After the workmen had gone, Claude took the girls upstairs by the ladder. They emerged from a little entry
into a large room which extended over both the front and back parlours. The carpenters called it "the pool
hall". There were two long windows, like doors, opening upon the porch roof, and in the sloping ceiling were
two dormer windows, one looking north to the timber claim and the other south toward Lovely Creek. Gladys
at once felt a singular pleasantness about this chamber, empty and unplastered as it was. "What a lovely
room!" she exclaimed.
Claude took her up eagerly. "Don't you think so? You see it's my idea to have the second floor for ourselves,
instead of cutting it up into little boxes as people usually do. We can come up here and forget the farm and the
kitchen and all our troubles. I've made a big closet for each of us, and got everything just right. And now Enid
wants to keep this room for preachers!"
Enid laughed. "Not only for preachers, Claude. For Gladys, when she comes to visit us--you see she likes
it--and for your mother when she comes to spend a week and rest. I don't think we ought to take the best room
for ourselves."
"Why not?" Claude argued hotly. "I'm building the whole house for ourselves. Come out on the porch roof,
Gladys. Isn't this fine for hot nights? I want to put a railing round and make this into a balcony, where we can
have chairs and a hammock."
Gladys sat down on the low window-sill. "Enid, you'd be foolish to keep this for a guest room. Nobody would
ever enjoy it as much as you would. You can see the whole country from here."
Enid smiled, but showed no sign of relenting. "Let's wait and watch the sun go down. Be careful, Claude. It
makes me nervous to see you lying there."
He was stretched out on the edge of the roof, one leg hanging over, and his head pillowed on his arm. The flat
fields turned red, the distant windmills flashed white, and little rosy clouds appeared in the sky above them.
"If I make this into a balcony," Claude murmured, "the peak of the roof will always throw a shadow over it in
the afternoon, and at night the stars will be right overhead. It will be a fine place to sleep in harvest time."
"Oh, you could always come up here to sleep on a hot night," Enid said quickly.
"It wouldn't be the same."
They sat watching the light die out of the sky, and Enid and Gladys drew close together as the coolness of the
autumn evening came on. The three friends were thinking about the same thing; and yet, if by some sorcery
each had begun to speak his thoughts aloud, amazement and bitterness would have fallen upon all. Enid's
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