vered
with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than
the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having
become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was
attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the
chips which I had made.

By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made
the most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had
already bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on
the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered
an uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I
walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window
was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage
roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all
around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part,
though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there
was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board.
Mrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The
hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor
for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there
a board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the
inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended
under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust
hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were "good boards overhead,
good boards all around, and a good window"--of two whole squares
originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a
stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it
was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new
coffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon
concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four
dollars and twenty-five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow
morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at
six. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain
indistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and
fuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. At six I passed
him and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all--bed,
coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens--all but the cat; she took