Chapter 23

Work on the Boarder's Annex was begun with frantic zeal, each and every member of the Jenkins family lending a helping hand. The Boarder, as boss carpenter, worked after switching hours until it grew dark; then the children took turns, in holding a lantern for him. The savings of the Boarder being taxed by the trip to "Niagry" and the furnishing of the apartment, great economy had to be exercised in the erecting of the Annex. He strictly adhered to his determination not to touch the "rainy day fund."

Amarilly pleaded for a bay window, but the Boarder felt this ornamentation to be quite beyond his means, so they finally compromised on a small and simple porch on which Lily Rose could sit of a summer night while the Boarder smoked by her side. Mrs. Jenkins, moved to memories long dormant of the home of her youth, suggested blinds instead of window-shades, but the Boarder after much figuring proved adamantine in resistance to this temptation.

Lily Rose was the only one who made no suggestions. Anything the Boarder might construct in the way of a nesting place was beautiful in her eyes.

"She'd be too sorter modist-like to tell me if she was sot on any perticler thing about the new place," he confided wistfully to Amarilly, "You're so sharp I wish you'd kinder hint around and find out what she wants. Jest put out some feelers."

Amarilly diplomatically proceeded to put out "feelers," and after much maneuvering joyously imparted to the Boarder the information that Lily Rose loved to look at the one solitary tree that adorned the Jenkins lot, because to her it meant "the country."

"So that's the way she loves to look out," informed Amarilly, "and, you see there isn't any window on that side of your rooms."

"There shall be one," declared the Boarder firmly.

"Couldn't you make it a bay?" again coaxed Amarilly, "It's on the side the sun comes in most, and the doctor said Lily Rose should get all the sunlight she could. If she could sit in that bay window sunny days next winter it would be better than medicine for her."

The Boarder sighed.

"Don't tempt me, Amarilly. There ain't a cent more I kin squeeze out."

"I'll think out a way," thought Amarilly confidently.

She took the matter to Colette, who instantly and satisfactorily solved the problem, and Amarilly returned radiant.

"She says you've saved too much out for furniture, and to build the bay window from the furniture fund."

The Boarder shook his head.

"I thought of that, but thar ain't a thing I can take out of that. I got the figgers on the price of everything from the House Furnishers' Establishment."

"But you see, Miss King says no one ever comes to a wedding without bringing a present. That it wouldn't be et--,--dear me! I have forgotten what the word is. And she says not to buy any furniture till all the presents come, and then I can settle the rooms for you while you and Lily Rose are away. Lots of the things you are expecting to buy will be given you."

"It's risky," said the Boarder dubiously. "We'll most likely git casters and bibles and tidies. That's what I've allers seen to weddin's."

"Well, I see I have got to put a flea in your ear, but don't tell Lily Rose. Let it be a surprise to her. Miss King is going to give you a handsome base-burner coal stove. So you can take that off your list."

The Boarder looked pleased and yet distressed.

"She shouldn't go fer to do that!" he protested.

"Well, she wants to give you a nice present because you've been nice to us, and she thinks Lily Rose is sweet, and she says she believes in making sensible presents. She asked Mr. Meredith what to get, and he told her to get the stove so you see it's all right if he says so. She thought you wouldn't need a stove till next winter, but I told her you wanted the rooms furnished complete now."

"Then," said the Boarder beamingly, "the bay winder shall be cut out ter-morrer."

"Don't cut it _out_!" said Amarilly alarmed.

"I don't mean in a slang way," he said, laughing. "I mean cut out with a saw."

When Lily Rose was brought over one starlight night in budding May to see the beautiful aperture that would eventually become a bay window and face the solitary tree, two dewy drops of joy came into her eyes. Before them all she raised her pale, little face for a kiss which the Boarder bestowed with the solemn air of one pronouncing a benediction, for Lily Rose was chary of outward and visible expressions of affection, and he was deeply moved by this voluntary offering.

The Annex grew rapidly, but its uprising was not accomplished without some hazard and adventure. There was an exciting day when Cory fell through the scaffolding where she had been climbing. She suffered a moment of unconsciousness and a bump on her head.

"An inch nigher her brain, and it would have killed her!" exclaimed the mother in tragic tones.

"An inch of miss is as good as a mile," said the Boarder philosophically.

There was also a thrilling moment when Iry thrust his head through the railings of the new porch. Satisfied with his outlook, he would fain have withdrawn, but was prevented by an unaccountable swelling of his pate. Flamingus, coming to the rescue and working seemingly on the theory that his skull might be compressible, tried to pull him backward, but the frantic shrieks of Iry caused this plan of ejection to be abandoned.

"The rest of him is smaller than his head," observed Amarilly practically, as she arrived upon the scene and took a comprehensive view of the case, "Push him through, Flam, and I'll go around on the other side and get him."

Iry, safely landed in Amarilly's arms, laughed his delight, and thinking it a sort of game, was about to repeat his stunt of "in and out."

"It's time something was done to you," said Amarilly determinedly, "before you get killed in this place. I am going to spank you, Iry, and Co, too. I am going to spank you both fierce. And you are to keep away from the new part."

In spite of wailing protests, Amarilly administered a spanking to the two younger children that worked effectually against further repetition of their hazardous performances. But Bobby tobogganed down the roof during its shingling and sprained his ankle, which necessitated the use of crutches.

"He can break his neck if he wants to," remarked Amarilly, when besought by Co to punish him too.

Mrs. Jenkins lost a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so tenderly over every part and plank of the Annex that there was no chance for mishap.

When the lathing and plastering were completed, the little bride-elect began to tremble with timidity and happiness at the consciousness of the nearness of her approaching transfer to the Home.

The plan of the Boarder had been to leave the walls rough and unfinished till their settling process should be accomplished, but Amarilly, absorbed heart and soul in this first experience of making a nesting place, pleaded for paper--"quiet, pretty paper with soft colors," she implored, Derry's teachings now beginning to bear fruit in Amarilly's development of the artistic.

"Amarilly, we can't hev everything to onct," he rebuked solemnly. "The paper'll crack as sure as fate, if you put it on now."

"Let it crack!" defied Amarilly. "Then you can put on more. You're away nearly all day, and the rest of us are at work, but if Lily Rose has to sit here all day and look at these white walls that look just like sour bread that hasn't riz"--Derry had not yet discovered this word in Amarilly's vocabulary--"she'll go mad."

"Amarilly," sighed the Boarder, "you'll hev me in the poorhouse yit!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Amarilly. "I'll have to let you into another secret. Mr. Meredith is going to give you and Lily Rose a handsome centre-table and an easy-chair. There won't be any surprises left for you by the time the wedding is over, but you're so set, I have to keep giving things away to you."

"That makes me think," remarked the Boarder. "I was going to ask you what I'd orter give the preacher fer marryin' Lily Rose and me. The fireman of Number Six told me he give two dollars when he was spliced, but you see Mr. Meredith is so swell, I'd orter give more."

Amarilly gazed reflectively into space while she grappled with this proposition.

"Do you know," she said presently, with the rare insight that was her birthright, "I don't think Mr. Meredith would like money--not from you-- for Lily Rose. You see he's a sort of a friend, and you'd better give him a present because money, unless it was a whole lot, wouldn't mean anything to him."

"That's so," admitted the Boarder, "but what kin I give him?"

Amarilly had another moment of thought.

"Make him a bookrack. Mr. Derry will draw you the design, and you can carve it out. You can do it noons after you eat your luncheon, then you won't lose any time building the house."

"That's jest what I'll do. So with the fee saved and the cheer and table out, I kin paper the rooms. You find out what kind Lily Rose wants and help her pick it out."

"She'll choose blue," lamented Amarilly, "and that fades quick."

Lily Rose was easily persuaded to let Derry be consulted. He promptly volunteered to tint the walls, having studied interior decorations at one time in his career. He wrought a marvellous effect in soft grays and browns with bordering graceful vines.

Lily Rose by taking advantage of a bargain sale on suits saved enough from her trousseau to curtain the windows in dainty blue and white muslin.

Derry then diverted the appropriation for an ingrain carpet to an expenditure for shellac and paint with which he showed Amarilly how to do the floors. Some cheap but pretty rugs were selected in place of the carpet.

At last the Annex was ready for painting. Lily Rose wistfully stated that she had always longed to live in a white house, so despite the fact that the Jenkins house proper was a sombre red, the new part was painted white.

"'Twill liven the place up," Amarilly consoled herself, while Colette breathed a sigh of relief that the Annex was not to be entirely conventional.

At Amarilly's suggestion, the woodwork was also painted white.

"Hard to keep clean," warned Amarilly, divided in her trend of practicality and her loyalty to St. John's favorite color. White won.

The moment the paint was dry and the Annex announced "done," the Boarder took Lily Rose to view their prospective domicile. They were unaccompanied by any of the family, but it took the combined efforts of Mrs. Jenkins, Amarilly, and Flamingus, whose recent change in voice and elongation of trousers gave him an air of authority, to prevent a stampede by the younger members.

Lily Rose returned wet-eyed, sweetly smiling, and tremulous of voice, but the Boarder stood erect, proud in his possessions.

Colette vetoed the plan for Amarilly to settle in the absence of the groom and bride.

"If you have it all furnished beforehand," she argued, "there will be just so much more room to entertain in on the night of the wedding."

And then Lily Rose confessed that "she'd love to be 'to hum' in her own place."

"But they won't be furnished," argued Amarilly.

"Oh, yes, they will," assured Colette. "It's etiquette--" she paused to note Amarilly writing the word down in a little book she carried--"for people to send their presents before they come, and you can settle as fast as they come in."

The wedding gifts all arrived the day before the wedding. The base- burner, though not needed for some months, was set up, because the Boarder said he would not feel at home until he could put his feet on his own hearth. John Meredith sent an oaken library table and an easy-chair. Derry's offering was in the shape of a beautiful picture and a vase for the table.

The best man, who fortunately had appealed to Amarilly for guidance, gave a couch. The Jenkins family, assessed in proportion to their respective incomes, provided a bedroom set. Lily Rose's landlady sent a willow rocker; the girl friends at the factory a gilt clock; the railroad hands, six silver spoons and an equal number of forks. Lily Rose's Sunday-school teacher presented a lamp. A heterogeneous assortment of articles came from the neighbors.

These presents were all arranged in the new rooms by Lily Rose, and the elegance of the new apartment was overwhelming in effect to the household.

"It looks most too fine to feel to hum in," gasped the Boarder. "It makes me feel strange!"

"It won't look strange to you," assured the bride-elect, looking shyly into his adoring eyes, "when you come home and find me sitting here in my blue dress waiting for you, will it?"

"No!" agreed the Boarder with a quick intake of breath, "'Twill be home and heaven, Lily Rose."