For an instant, Annixter stood awkwardly in his place, ridiculous, clumsy, murmuring over and over again:
“Well--well--that's all right--who's going to hurt you? You needn't be afraid--who's going to hurt you--that's all right.”
Then, suddenly, with a quick, indefinite gesture of one arm, he exclaimed:
He turned away, striding up the stairs, crossing the dairy-room, and regained the open air, raging and furious. He turned toward the barns, clapping his hat upon his head, muttering the while under his breath:
“Oh, you goat! You beastly fool PIP. Good LORD, what an ass you've made of yourself now!”
Suddenly he resolved to put Hilma Tree out of his thoughts. The matter was interfering with his work. This kind of thing was sure not earning any money. He shook himself as though freeing his shoulders of an irksome burden, and turned his entire attention to the work nearest at hand.
The prolonged rattle of the shinglers' hammers upon the roof of the big barn attracted him, and, crossing over between the ranch house and the artesian well, he stood for some time absorbed in the contemplation of the vast building, amused and interested with the confusion of sounds--the clatter of hammers, the cadenced scrape of saws, and the rhythmic shuffle of planes--that issued from the gang of carpenters who were at that moment putting the finishing touches upon the roof and rows of stalls. A boy and two men were busy hanging the great sliding door at the south end, while the painters--come down from Bonneville early that morning--were engaged in adjusting the spray and force engine, by means of which Annixter had insisted upon painting the vast surfaces of the barn, condemning the use of brushes and pots for such work as old-fashioned and out-of-date.
He called to one of the foremen, to ask when the barn would be entirely finished, and was told that at the end of the week the hay and stock could be installed.
“And a precious long time you've been at it, too,” Annixter declared.
“Oh, rot the rain! I work in the rain. You and your unions make me sick.”
“But, Mr. Annixter, we couldn't have begun painting in the rain. The job would have been spoiled.”
“Hoh, yes, spoiled. That's all very well. Maybe it would, and then, again, maybe it wouldn't.”