of the log hut they called home.

It looked very pretty to Hannah. She had the fairy gift, that is so
rare among mortals, of seeing beauty in its faintest expression; and
the young grass about the rough stone doorstep, the crimson cones on
the great larch tree behind it, the sunlit panes of the west window,
the laugh and sparkle of the brook that ran through the clearing, the
blue eyes of the squirrel caps that blossomed shyly and daintily
beside the stumps of new-felled trees--all these she saw and delighted
in. And when the door was open, the old clock set up, the bed laid on
the standing bedplace, and the three chairs and table ranged against
the wall, she began her house-wifery directly, singing as she went.
Before John had put his oxen in the small barn, sheltered the cart and
the tools in it, and shaken down hay into the manger, Hannah had made
a fire, hung on the kettle, spread up her bed with homespun sheets and
blankets and a wonderful cover of white-and-red chintz, set the table
with a loaf of bread, a square of yellow butter, a bowl of maple
sugar, and a plate of cheese; and even released the cock and the hen
from their uneasy prison in a splint basket, and was feeding them in
the little woodshed when John came in.

His face lit up, as he entered, with that joyful sense of home so
instinctive in every true man and woman. He rubbed his hard hands
together, and catching Hannah as she came in at the shed door,
bestowed upon her a resounding kiss.

"You're the most of a little woman I ever see, Hannah, I swan to
man."

Hannah laughed like a swarm of spring blackbirds.

"I declare, John, you do beat all! Ain't it real pleasant here? Seems
to me I never saw things so handy."

Oh, Hannah, what if your prophetic soul could have foreseen the
conveniences of this hundred years after! Yet the shelves, the pegs,
the cupboard in the corner, the broad shelf above the fire, the great
pine chest under the window, and the clumsy settle, all wrought out of
pine board by John's patient and skilful fingers, filled all her
needs; and what can modern conveniences do more?

So they ate their supper at home for the first time, happy as
new-nested birds, and far more grateful.

John had built a sawmill on the brook a little way from the house, and
already owned a flourishing trade, for the settlement about the lake
from which Nepasset Brook sprung was quite large, and till John
Perkins went there the lumber had been all dra