Читать книгу Goose Creek Folks. A Story of the Kentucky Mountains онлайн

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Martin listened in silent good humour to the wagging tongues. That his employer had confidence in his ability was enough, and he worked with unceasing energy. At the end of the second day the critics were silenced, and before the week was over it had been noised abroad that Sam Coyle’s son had come back from school with a trade at his “finger eends ’sides a heap o’ book larnin’.” The Settlement store was, for the first time in many months, nearly destitute of loungers.

Instead of the intended lean-to, a one story frame addition was built across the front of the Dodd cabin, shutting the original completely from view of the traveller on the creek path. A wide porch increased the magnificence of the structure, and when a coat of yellow paint with trimmings of a brilliant red denoted the completion of Martin’s contract, the spectators were unanimous in agreeing that the mountains had never seen anything quite so grand. The peaks looked down at the innovation with a new dignity—so it seemed to the young carpenter. He had been learning the value of simplicity, and he realized how little his handiwork harmonized with the beauty around it. But he had only carried out the wishes of the squire, and he dismissed the subject from his mind for something more weighty was upon it.