That Sim Soames and
himself should be an insufficient force to combat with such repairs as
the Court could afford was an idea presenting an aspect of unheard-of
novelty, but that methods as coolly radical as those this questioning
implied, should be resorted to, was staggering.
"Me and Sim has always done what work was done," he stammered. "It
hasn't been much."
Miss Vanderpoel neither assented to nor dissented from this last
palpable truth. She regarded Buttle with searching eyes. She was
wondering if any practical ability concealed itself behind his dullness.
If she gave him work, could he do it? If she gave the whole village
work, was it too far gone in its unspurred stodginess to be roused to
carrying it out?
"There is a great deal to be done now," she said. "All that can be done
in the village should be done here. It seems to me that the villagers
want work--new work. Do they?"
Work! New work! The spark of life in her steady eyes actually
lighted a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladies in
villages--gentry--usually visited the cottagers a bit if they were
well-meaning young women--left good books and broth or jelly, pottered
about and were seen at church, and playing croquet, and finally married
and removed to other places, or gradually faded year by year into
respectable spinsterhood.
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