ady quite 'westernized,' with her neat calico and tidy apron, busy
in her preparations for the house-raising.

"I don't mean to stay in a borrowed house a great while," she said.
"Husband, how soon do you calculate that we can be housekeeping in our
own cabin?"

"It will take some weeks, do our best," he answered.

"Well," she rejoined, "I'll set the time four weeks from to-day; and
if it isn't ready then, I shall go into it if I have to leave you
behind."

But how slowly everything dragged, except the raising! The settlers
went into that with right good will; men and teams were busy drawing
the logs, while experienced hands placed them properly upon each
other, till the ridge-pole crowned the whole. Then they sat down on
the grass to partake of the tempting eatables that Tom and Mr. Payson
had brought on the ground. There were the light biscuits and the
golden butter, nice venison steaks for which they were indebted to the
rifle of Mr. Jones, dried apple turnovers, and the sheets of crisp
gingerbread, loaf cake, and fragrant coffee.

"We don't get any whiskey at this raising!" said Mr. Palmer, nudging
his next neighbor.

"No," he replied; "and it's an example that I hope will be often
followed."

Then there was the door to be made and hung, and the windows to be
put in, and the crevices between the logs to be mortared, and the
floors laid--long and tedious operations, where everybody was
over-busy, and labor could be hired neither "for love nor money." Mr.
Payson found that much of the work had to be done by himself, with
the occasional help of Tom. He was city-bred, and his bodily
strength feeble; but necessity obliged him to perform prodigies of
teaming, lifting, and joinering, and even of quarrying stone for the
well that was being dug. A few weeks had wrought a wonderful
change in the man of books; his study was wherever he chanced to be;
his white hands had become horny and browned, his pale face
tanned. His retiring habits had given place to a broad sociality,
his diffidence to a generous self-reliance, and it seemed to him
that he could do and dare almost anything. From early morning till
late at night he worked to get his log home ready, while his wife
and little ones remained in the solitary cabin by the riverside.
It was a long walk for him, however after toiling all day; and
when the sky was overcast at nightfall, he was in danger of
getting lost. This gave his wife much uneasiness; then she feared