get it apart; there he cut under the ends of
splendid strong floor joists and dropped them into shallow
mortises, so that but an inch or two of the wood really took the
strain, and the joist seemed likely to split and drop out, of its
own weight. You see the work of the man who knew his business and
used only necessary nails, and those in the right places; and the
work of that other, who was five times as good a carpenter because
he used five times as many nails!

You learn, too, how the old house grew from a very humble
beginning to an eleven-room structure that covered a surprising
amount of ground, as one generation after another passed and one
owner succeeded another. In this the counsel of the local
historian helps you much, for he comes daily and sits by as you
work, and daily tells you the story of the old place, usually
beginning in the middle and working both ways; for the unbuilding
of a building is a great promoter of sociability. Fellow townsmen
whom you feel that you hardly know beyond a rather stiff bowing
acquaintance hold up their horses and hail you jovially, even
getting out to chat a while or lend a hand, each having opinions
according to his lights. Strickland, whose prosperity lies in
swine, sees but one use for the old timbers. "My!" he says, "what
a hog-pen this would make!" Downes is divided in his mind between
hen-houses and green-houses, and thinks there will be enough
lumber and sashes for both. Lynde suspects that you are going to
establish gypsy camps wholesale, while Estey, carpenter and
builder, and wise in the working of wood, knows that you are lucky
if the remains are good enough for fire-wood.

Little for these material aspects cares the historian, however, as
he skips gayly from one past generation to another, waving his
phantoms off the stage of memory with a sweep of his cane, and
poking others on to make their bow to the man with the crowbar,
who thus, piecing the narrative out with his own detective work in
wood, rebuilds the story. It was but a little house which began
with two rooms on the ground floor and two attic chambers, built
for Stoddard who married the daughter of the pioneer landowner of
the vicinity, and it nestled up within a stone's throw of the big
house, sharing its prosperity and its history. No doubt the
Stoddards were present at the funeral in the big house, when stern
old Parson Dunbar stood above the deceased, in the presence of the
assembled relatives, a