the Italian boss who has worked for me before, has taken this
contract, and will put twelve hundred men on.'

"'The train will arrive here?' said I. 'What do you mean?'

"'The M. B. & T. line runs within a mile and a half of this place, and
my trains will all be switched off at a convenient place near here.'

"'I would not have supposed there was a side-track there,' I remarked.

"'Oh, no,' he replied, 'there was none; but I am now having two built.
All the different gangs of men will sleep on the freight-cars, which
have been fitted up with bunks. The wood-cutters and the landscape-men,
hedgers, sodders, and all that arrived about an hour ago, and I am
expecting the mechanics' train late this afternoon. The gardeners will
not arrive until to-morrow; but if it keeps on raining, that will give
them time enough. They want wet weather for their work.'"

"Excuse me," said the Master of the House, who had now finished his
cigar and was sitting upright in his chair, "but didn't you omit to
state that your hero was the King of Siam?"

"I have nothing of the kind to state," answered his wife. "He is merely
an American gentleman.

"When I heard of the great works that were going on, I exclaimed: 'Look
here, Baxter, you must be careful about what you are doing. If you make
this place look like a vast cemetery, all laid out in smooth grass and
gravelled driveways, my wife won't like it. She wants to live in a cot,
and she wants everything to be cottish and naturally rural.'

"'That is just what I am going to make it,' said he. 'The highest grade
of true naturalism is what I am aiming at in house and grounds.
To-morrow afternoon you can look at the house. Everything will be done
then, and the furniture will all be in place, and if you want any change
there will be time enough.'

"The next day I went to the cot; but before I reached it I stopped.
'Baxter,' I said, 'you have done very well with this rill; it is quite a
roaring little torrent.'

"'Yes,' said he; 'and down below they are working on some waterfalls,
but they are not quite finished.'

"When I reached the house I did not exactly comprehend what I saw; it
was the same house, and yet it was entirely different. It seemed to have
grown fifty years older than it was when I first saw it. Its color was
that of wood beautifully stained by age. There was a low piazza I had
not noticed, which was covered with vines. Bright-colored old-fashioned
flowers were growing in