Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/496

 "You know—you know what we've been talking about, trying to find one's way, know what you were meant to do. Well, my guess about myself is that I'm a maker by birth, not a buyer or seller. The more I think of it the better it looks to me, like something I'd like to put my heart into doing as well as I could—taking raw material, you know, that's of no special value in itself and helping other men to make it worth more by adding work and intelligence to it. You know what somebody said about the ounce of iron that's of no use, and the hundred hair-springs the watchmaker makes out of it. I don't see why I didn't think of it at once when I knew Uncle Burton had left me the mill. But I'd never have thought of it if you hadn't helped me. It takes me so long to get around to anything anyhow. And you are so quick! You see, I know a lot about the lumber-business, and quite a bit about saw mills, and I can get on fine with workmen. I like them, and I love working in the woods. And—and—" he brought out the second of his carefully planned points, "it would be a home too. You said it was a home. Everybody wants a home, Marise."

He sat silent, listening to the word as it echoed over their two homeless heads. And then he took his courage in his two hands and turned towards Marise. What he saw in her face so shocked and startled him that every carefully planned word dropped from his mind. He forgot everything except that the dark, set look was on her face and all that tragic sadness he could not forget.

"Marise, Marise—what is it?" he cried, frightened. What could he have said?

With her shoulders and eyebrows she made an ugly, dry little gesture of dismissing the subject, and said ironically, "What makes you so sure everybody wants a home?"

He stared at her stupidly, not able to think of anything to say, till she went on impatiently, irritably, "It's just sentimental to talk like that. I never heard you say a sentimental word before. You know what homes are like,—places where people either lie to each other or quarrel."

Neale was startled by the quivering, low-toned violence of