Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ We saw nothing of Stack Glashner. I had time now to make another call on the Jeanbards, but no clothes fit to make it in. My kit had been burned; and the clothes in which I had worked through the two fires and the harvests of hay and grain and roots were by now but little more than the patches of divers colors and materials with which Amy Bear had mended them. I had written to a tailor in town, however; and Sol, who was so superior to the vanities of dress that he never knew what he had on, drove to the post office in the settlement to inquire for parcels for me. ”

“ Tom became an expert nailing on shingles.
I visited the Jeanbards three times, only to find, each time, that Rose was still in the village. Jules and Jacques were grateful. They were full of gratitude. They seemed still to be staggered and awed by the realization that, but for Tom Deblore and me, the grass would be sprouting on three Jeanbard graves by this time. Jules never mentioned to me any incident of that night on which he had shot at the lantern out on the hardhack, that night on which he and Rose and Stack and I had all been in the woods together. ”

“ XVI WE LIVED in the barns while the men of the settlement and the village beyond, bossed by Deacon Amos Trim, built us a new house. At times there were as many as ten men at work, and at times as few as three. Stack Glashner hauled in a load of sawn lumber now and then, but he never remained for long. A new house was being built for the Jeanbards, too; and that was the job Stack worked on, I imagine. I did not see anything of the Jeanbards, but heard that Rose was visiting a friend in the village. ”