ashes, no bill for
cord-wood, and it will look as stiff and prim as any New England old maid
and be as devoid of sentiment and art as a department-store bargain
picture frame.

XLVI

THE BUILDING OF THE LOG HOUSE

How a Forty-Foot-Front, Two-Story Pioneer Log House Was Put Up with the
Help of "Backwoods Farmers"--Making Plans with a Pocket Knife.

OUR log house on the shore of Big Tink Pond, Pike County, Pa., was built
long before the general public had been educated to enjoy the subtle
charms of wild nature, at a time when nature-study was confined to
scientists and children, and long before it was fashionable to have wild
fowl on one's lawn and wild flowers in one's garden. At that time only a
few unconventional souls spent their vacations out of sight of summer
hotels, camping on the mountain or forest trails. The present state of the
public mind in regard to outdoor life has only been developed within the
last few years, and when I first announced my intention of hunting up some
accessible wild corner and there erecting a log house for a summer studio
and home I found only unsympathetic listeners. But I was young and rash at
that time, and without any previous experience in building or the aid of
books to guide me and with only such help as I could find among backwoods
farmers I built a forty-foot-front, two-story log house that is probably
the pioneer among log houses erected by city men for summer homes. It gave
Mr. Charles Wingate the suggestions from which he evolved Twilight Park in
the Catskills. Twilight Park, being the resort of literary people and
their friends, did much to popularize log houses with city people.

The deserted farms of New England offer charming possibilities for those
whose taste is for nature with a shave, hair cut, and store clothes, but
for lovers of untamed nature the waste lands offer stronger inducements
for summer-vacation days, and there is no building which fits so naturally
in a wild landscape as a good, old-fashioned log cabin. It looks as if it
really belonged there and not like a windfall from some passing whirlwind.

When I make the claim that any ordinary man can build himself a summer
home, I do not mean to say that he will not make blunders and plenty of
them; only fools never make mistakes, wise men profit by them, and the
reader may profit by mine, for there is no lack of them in our log house
at Big Tink. But the house still stands on the bank overlooking t