The Idyl of Twin Fires

by Walter Prichard Eaton

  Chapter XVIII

  WE BUILD A POOL

  It was the strangest, sweetest sensation I had ever known to wake inthe morning and hear soft singing in the room where a fresh breeze waswandering. I saw Stella standing at the window, her hair about hershoulders, looking out. She turned when I stirred, came over to kissme, while her hair fell about my face, and then cried, "Hurry! Hurry! Imust get out into the garden!"

  Presently, hand in hand, we went over the new lawn to the sundial whichstood amid a ring of brilliant blooms--which, however, had becomeunbelievably choked with weeds in the ten days of my absence. Thegnomon was throwing a long shadow westward across the VII. We filled thebird bath, which Peter had neglected. We hurried through the orchardto the brook, to see the flowers blooming there, and there, alas! wefound the volume of the stream shrunk to less than half its former size.We ran to the rows of berry vines to see how many had survived, andfound the greater part of them sprouting nicely; we went up the slopeinto the rows of vegetables and inspected them; we rushed to see if allthe roses were alive; we went to the barn where Mike had just begunto milk, and sniffed the warm, sweet odour.

  "Yes, it's better for any man to be married," I heard Mike saying toher, as I moved back toward the door. Then he added something I couldnot hear, and she came to me with rosy face. "The horrid old man!" Shewas half laughing to herself.

  The goods we had ordered began to arrive after breakfast, Bert bringingthem from the freight house in his large wagon. I took the day off, anddevoted the morning to laying a stair carpet, probably the hottest job Iever tackled. Thank goodness, the stairs went straight up, withoutcurve or angle! As I worked, small feet pattered by me, up and down,and garments from a big trunk in the lower hall brushed my face as theywere being carried past--brushed their faint feminine perfume into mynostrils and made my hammer pause in mid-air. After the carpet waslaid, there were a thousand and one other things to do. There werepictures of Stella's to be hung, and them we put in the hitherto vacantroom at the front of the house, next to the dining-room, where Stella'swall desk was also placed, and a case of her books, and some chairs.

  "Now I can work here when you want to create literature in your room,or I can receive my distinguished visitors here when you are busy," shelaughed, setting some ornaments on the mantel. "My, but I've got a lotof curtains to make! I never did so much sewing in my life."

  Bureaus were carried upstairs with Mike's assistance, and the ivorybacks of a woman's toilet articles appeared upon them; open closetsshowed me rows of women's garments; glass candlesticks were unpackedand set upon the dining-table, and the new dining-chairs "dressed up"the room remarkably. Everywhere we went Mrs. Pillig followed with dustpan and broom, slicking up behind us. When night came it was still anincomplete house--"Oh, a million things yet to get," cried Stella,"just one by one, as we can afford it, which will be fun!"--but a housethat spoke everywhere of a dainty mistress. Outside, by the woodshed,was a pile of packing-boxes and opened crates and excelsior.

  "There's _your_ work, Peter," I said, pointing.

  Peter looked rueful, but said nothing.

  That evening I tried to work, but found it difficult, for watching mywife sew.

  "You've no technique," I laughed.

  She made a little _moue_ at me, and went on hemming the curtains,getting up now and then to measure them. "Why should I have?" shesaid presently. "You knew I was a Ph. D. when you married me. Thesecurtains be on your own head! I'm doing the best I can."

  There was suddenly the suspicion of moisture in her eyes, and I ran tocomfort her.

  "I--I so want to make Twin Fires lovely," she added, pricking herfinger. "Oh, tell me I can, if I am only a highbrow!"

  Of course the finger had to be kissed, and she had to be kissed, and thehem had to be inspected and praised, and now, long, long afterward, Ismile to think how alike we all of us are on a honeymoon.

  It was the next morning that we resolved to begin the pool. "I don'texpect to be married again for several years," said I, "and so I'mgoing to take a holiday this week. We'll carry the vegetables to marketand bring back the cement, and begin on our water garden."

  Mike loaded the wagon with peas, the last of the rhubarb, and ten quartsof currants picked by Peter, and off we started.

  "What is this horse's name?" asked Stella, taking the reins to learnto drive.

  "He has none, I guess. Mike calls him 'Giddup.'"

  "No, it's Dobbin. He looks just like a Dobbin. He has a kind ofconventional, discouraged tail, like a Dobbin. Giddup, Dobbin!"

  The horse started to trot. "There, you see, it _is_ his name!" shelaughed.

  On Bentford Main Street we passed several motors and a trap drawn by aprancing span, and all the occupants stared at us, or rather at Stella,who was beaming from her humble seat on the farm wagon more like aneighteenth century shepherdess than a New England farmer's wife. Weadded over $3 more in the account book with the market, and read withdelight the grand total of $40.80 already in two weeks.

  "Next year," said I, "I'll double it!"

  Then I spent the $3, and some more, for Portland cement.

  We got into our oldest clothes when we reached home, I put on rubberboots, and we tackled the pool. Even with the brook as low as it was,the engineering feat was not easy for our unskilful hands. Peter soonjoined us, and lent at least unlimited enthusiasm.

  "Peter," said I, "you never worked this hard splitting kindlings."

  Peter grinned. "Ho, I like to make dams," he said.

  The first thing we did was to divert the brook by digging a new channelabove the spot where we were to build the dam, and letting the water flowaround to the left, close to one of the flower beds. Then, when the oldchannel had dried out a little, I spaded a trench across it and two feetinto the banks on each side, and with Peter helping, filled the trenchnearly full of the largest, flattest stones we could find, which we allthen tramped upon to firm down. Then, a foot apart, we stood two boardson edge across the space, to make a mould for the concrete above thestones. I sent Peter with a wheelbarrow to pick up a load of smallpebbles in the road, of the most irregular shape he could find, and Imyself dug deeper in the hole where I had got the sand when we builtthe bird bath, and brought loads of it to the brookside. We dumpedsand, pebbles, and cement into a big box, one pail of cement to one pailof pebbles and three of sand, and Peter and Stella fought for the hoe tomix them, while I poured in the water from a watering-pot, for I hadread and seen the reason for the fact that the success of the cementdepends upon every particle being thoroughly mixed. As fast as we had abox full of mixture prepared, we dumped it into the mould between theboards. It took an astonishing quantity of cement--quite all we had,in fact--and to finish off the top smooth and level I had to get thequarter bag left from my orchard work and the bird bath. It was eveningwhen we had it done, and Peter, who had deserted us soon after dinnerto play ball, returned to beg us to take the boards away, and grewquite unreasonable when we refused.

  That night there was a shower, and the brook rose a trifle. When wehastened down through the orchard after breakfast the new channel hadcurved itself still farther, as streams do when once they get startedoff the straight line, and had washed the southeast flower bed halfaway. Stella, with a cry of grief, ran down the brook into the pines,and came back with sadly bedraggled _Phlox Drummondi_ plants in herhands, their trailing roots washed white, their blooms broken. "Horridbrook," she said. "Let's put it right back into its proper place. Idon't like it any more."

  "A sudden change of habit is always dangerous," said I. "Put theplants in the mud somewhere till we can set 'em in again."

  We now took away the boards from the new dam, which had begun to hardennicely. The next thing to do was to stake out the pool above it. Asthe dam was 10 feet below the line between the proposed bench and thefront door of the house, the other end of the pool was marked off 20feet upstream, and between the two extremes we dug out the soil into anoval basin. This was easily accomplished by chopping out th
e turf witha grub hoe, and then hitching Dobbin to the drag scraper. The soil was ablack, loamy sand, which came up easily, and was hauled over and dumpedfor dressing on the site of our little lawn beyond the pool. When we hadthe basin excavated to a depth of about a foot, all three of us (forPeter was once more on the job) scattered to find stones to hold thebanks.

  New England farms are traditionally stony--till you want stones. Weended by taking some here and there from the stone walls after we hadscoured the pasture behind the barn for half a barrow load. When once thecircumference of the pool had been ringed with stones, stood up onedge, we raked the bottom smooth, sprinkled clean sand upon it, andwere ready to let the water against the dam as soon as the concretehardened. We gave it one more day, and then shovelled away the temporarydam, filled up the new channel where it turned out of the old, and stoodbeside the dam while the current, with a first muddy rush, swirledagainst it, eddied back, and began very slowly to rise.

  "She holds, she holds!" I cried. "But we've forgotten to put stonesfor the water to fall over upon. It will undermine the structure if wedon't."

  "'Structure' is good," laughed Stella, regarding our little six-footlong and eighteen-inch high piece of engineering.

  We shouted for Peter, and ran to the nearest stone wall, tugging backsome flat stones which we placed directly below the dam for the overflowto fall on. Then, while Stella sat on the bank and watched the waterrise, I shovelled some of the earth removed from the basin into the nowabandoned temporary channel, and packed it down.

  "Say, we can have fish in here," cried Peter, who was also watchingthe water rise.

  "You can have a four-legged fish," laughed Stella, as Buster came downthe bank with a gleeful bark and went splash into the pool, emerging toshake himself and spray us all.

  I had scarce finished filling in the temporary trench, and was settingthe poor uprooted plants back into the bed, with my back turned, whenI heard a simultaneous shout from Peter and Stella.

  "One, two, three--and over she goes!" cried Stella.

  I faced around just in time to see the first line of the water crawlingover the top of the dam, and a second later it splashed on the stonesbelow; behind it came the waterfall.

  Stella was dancing up and down. "Oh, it's a real waterfall!" shecried. "I've got a real waterfall all my own! Come on downstream andlook back at it!"

  From the grove below it certainly did look pretty, flashing in themorning sun. "And when there are iris blossoms, great Japanese iris,nodding over it!" I exclaimed.

  "Oh, can't we plant those right away?" she asked.

  "No," said I. "Gardens are like Rome, I'm afraid."

  We went back and surveyed our pool at close range. It was clearing now.But the second pile of earth remained to be removed from the west side.Peter and I carted that off in wheelbarrows at once, dumping part ofit into the hole where we had dug the sand, and the rest into a heapbehind some bushes upstream for future compost. Then we climbed theorchard slope for dinner. Midway we looked back. There glistened ourpool, a twenty-foot brown crystal mirror, with the four flower bedsall askew about it, the ragged weeds and bushes pressing them close,and beyond it only the rough ground I had cleared with a brush scythe,and the scraggly trees by the wall.

  "Alas" said I, "now we've built the pool, we've got to build a wholegarden to go with it!"

  "But it tinkles! Hear it tinkle!" cried Stella.

  We listened, hand in hand. The tiny waterfall was certainly tinkling, acool, delicate, plashy sound, which mingled with the sound of the breezein the trees above our heads, and the sweet twitterings of birds.

  "Oh, John, it's a very nice dam, and a very nice world!" shewhispered, as we went through the door. "And, after all, it seems to methe greatest fun of gardening is all the nice other things it makes youwant to do after you've done the first one."

  "That," said I sententiously, "is perhaps the secret of all successfulliving."