tion for the cattle, must, of course, be
of large dimensions, and are consequently expensive. With this Stephen
had proceeded surely and cautiously as was his wont. In the winter he
had hauled logs off his own land to the saw-mill to be made into boards.
He cut down with much trouble some of the ancient pines which long stood
in the centre of his best field, and from their giant trunks cut
well-seasoned blocks, with which he made shingles in the stormy days of
winter. Thus by degrees he provided all the materials for enclosing and
roofing, and was not obliged, as many are, to let the frame, (which is
the easiest part provided, and which they often raise without seeming
even to think how they are to be enclosed,) stand for years, like a huge
grey skeleton, with timbers all warped and blackened by the weather.
Steadily as Stephen had gone on, yet as the completion of his object
became nearer he grew impatient of its accomplishment, and determined to
have his barn ready for the reception of his hay harvest; and for this
purpose he worked on, hewing at the frame in the spring, reckless of the
penetrating rain, the chill wind, or the damp earth beneath, and thus,
by neglect of the natural laws, he was thrown upon the couch of
sickness, where he lay long. This evening, however, he was better, and
sat gazing with pleased aspect on the scene, and then I saw his eyes
turn from the fair green hill and its new erection to where, in the
hollow of a low and marshy spot of land, stood the moss-grown logs and
sunken walls of the first shelter he had raised for his cattle--his old
log barn, which stood on the worst land of the farm, but when it was
raised the woods around were dark and drear, and he knew not the good
soil from the bad; yet now he thought how, in this unseemly place, he
had stored his crop and toiled for years with unfailing health, where
his arm retained its nerve, unstrung neither by summer's heat nor
winter's cold, when the voice of his son, a tall stripling, who had
managed affairs during his illness, recalled him to the present, which
certainly to him I thought might wear no unfavourable aspect. He had
literally caused the wilderness to blossom as the rose, and saw rising
around him not a degenerate but an improving race, gifted far beyond
himself with bright mental endowments, the spontaneous growth of the
land they lived in, and which never flourish more fairly than when
engrafted on the old English stem; that is,