fish one at the best. Moralizing thus, it was by some means
revealed to us that people are happy in paying twenty-five dollars a
week at Martha's Vineyard and Mount Desert for the blessed privilege
of living in unfinished and unfurnished rooms,--breathing plenty of
fresh air, typhoid malaria thrown in,--and eating such food as the
uncertain winds and waves may waft thither. If at Mount Desert why not
at Rock Rimmon, especially as the cost is somewhat less, the fresh air
equally abundant, with nothing more malarious than the pungent perfume
of the pines, and all the products of the civilized world within easy
reach? Moreover, our third, fourth, and fifth stories--the floor of
the latter just above the ridge pole, its ceiling just beyond the
stars--were, for all purposes of use and comfort, ready for
occupation. So we entered, hung up our hats, and told the busy
builders we had come to stay.

Which we have done; and now it's the first of October. The leaves are
falling, the rooks are calling, the crickets are crawling, and the
katydids are--well, squalling. There's a work-bench bigger than Noah's
ark in the drawing-room, another in the library, next size larger,
five tool-chests in as many different rooms, a thousand feet of lumber
in the front hall, and nine hundred and thirty-seven different colored
paint-pots in the guest-room,--more or less. We pry into cupboards and
drawers with our finger-nails, we keep next the wall going up stairs,
draw water through a straw, and to open doors we thrust a square stick
through a round hole and twist and turn till the stick breaks or the
door opens. Generally the stick breaks.

But we are no longer desperate. The sound of the builder's axe and
hammer mingles harmoniously with the rattling of dishes and the
drumming of the piano. A profound peace possesses our souls, for
Nature's own infinite glory is around us, and we go from our castle in
Spain to our cottage by the sea, from our house of active industry to
our restful home in the New Jerusalem, with the opening and the
closing of a door. We are not anxious or impatient, being well
assured that steadfast industry will finally conquer and our house be
finished as far as mortal house should be. Which leads us to remark
just here, that a man ought never to think his house is quite
complete; he will not, if he is wise, and grows as long as he lives.
Our present point is the inevitable delay in the outward finishing to
which home buil