ss and a glad smile?"

John had a sudden flash of comprehension, and he flushed from head to
foot. His great mouth made a failure of a smile, and that he was pleased
Cavanaugh did not doubt. "You think you have a joke on me," John said.
"Well, well, go it, Sam! I'm game for a little thing like that."

"You may call it a joke, but I don't," the contractor said, quite
seriously. "You see, I've got an ax to grind--two, in fact, for in the
first place I want to rent this house for enough to pay the taxes and
insurance, and in the next I want to tie you down to Ridgeville. I am
too old to move now, and I need you mighty bad. Say, you and I can
become partners before long."

"Well, what has that got to do with your--your other damn foolishness?"
John's face was averted as he spoke. They were back in the bedroom now,
and he made a pretense of examining the new sash-cords of the window. He
drew one of the weights up in its hidden groove and lowered it again. He
had never before examined a detail of a building so minutely. He looked
closely at the paint on the mullions and searched for flaws in the
glass.

"It has got this to do with it," Cavanaugh went on, now steadily and
without a vestige of his former smile. "I'm no fool, my boy. I know as
well as I stand here that you are not going to leave that sweet little
girl up there to do the drudgery for that irritable old hog and his
obedient wife. If you did I'd lose respect for you. You are making good
pay and you will make even better. In a little nook like this you could
make her as happy as the day is long. She could do all the housework and
not work a fourth as hard as she does now. Why, I saw her in the
corn-field the other day, toiling like an old-time slave with a heavy
hoe, while her rotten old daddy was in the house picking out passages in
the Bible to pin down some particular argument of his."

"I guess--I guess--" John stammered, "that the--the _girl_ would have
something to say on the subject."

"How _can_ she, in the name of all possessed"--Cavanaugh snorted and
laughed--"unless she is _asked_? I'm no fool. I know what two smudges of
red about the cheek-bones of a pretty girl mean when they never come in
sight till a big, hulking feller in overalls appears on the scene. I
know, too, that things have taken place that you haven't heard about. I
know that I've turned myself into a contractor of flesh and blood
instead of brick and mortar. Them old folks simply agre