Ellis Meredith

When we mean to build
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And, then we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.

Shakspere.

The discovery of the incomplete journal made a subtle change in Adam. He had been silent and self-absorbed from the first, but he had never quite given up hope. Even now, Robin sought to keep up the pretence, and dreading the despair which she saw creeping over Adam, she began artfully to seek some means of interesting him in something else. The question of a proper place for the books gave her an opportunity, and Adam suggested that he build an addition to the house.

They planned it as eagerly as if it was to be a castle, and spent days in looking for adobe, but finally decided that logs would be better, and Adam's ax could have been heard ringing from morning till night. A log house is not exactly a work of art, but it requires no little skill to build one, and takes a good deal of time when the logs for the floor must be planed and squared, so as to make a matched board floor. Sometimes Robin went with Adam, and worked or read; sometimes she took him his luncheon at noon, for the trees were at some little distance from the house. The logs had to be "snaked" across the rough ground and down the mountain, and when the floor had been laid, and the location of the window decided upon, Robin planted morning-glory seeds where it was to be. By dint of much pushing and hauling the logs were finally put in place, and the roof battened down. The window was truly worthy of a mediÆval castle, for it was simply an oblong hole, boxed in with a casement made from some scraps of boards, while a slab shutter, swung on leather hinges, shut out the elements.

The chinking was a simple matter, and when it was all done, including a doorway into the main room, Robin was unfeignedly delighted. They made rows of shelves with the packing-cases, and arranged the books thereon. It was not an extensive library, but it occupied one side of the room, and was a godsend to them. Under the window Robin placed the green covered desk, and placed on it Adam's writing materials. Along the inside wall Adam built a bunk, after the fashion in miners' cabins, and with a mattress stuffed with the soft inner cornhusk, and a pillow from the other room, and blankets from the one tiny closet, the couch looked sufficiently inviting. On the floor Robin spread mats made from plaited cornhusk, and in the doorway hung a portiÈre, woven from the same material on a loom that a Navajo might not have utterly despised.

Adam's scanty wardrobe was transferred to pegs in one corner of the room, one or two stools were set first here, then there, until Robin was sure the best effect had been secured, and when all was done that they could accomplish with the means at hand, and the morning-glory blossoms came peeping in at the window, the room was by no means unattractive.

Then Robin's housewifely soul took refuge in house-cleaning, and she scrubbed and arranged and re-arranged, while Adam repaired or invented furniture, until inside and out their little domain was as perfect as they could make it.

Between them there had again fallen one of those long silences they dreaded, but seemed powerless to prevent. As the voice of the turtledove was lifted in the plaintive notes of nesting time, Adam harrowed three acres of the plowed land and planted it in wheat and corn. The perennial garden was flourishing, and there was nothing to do. Adam said so one day, with an air of calm finality.

Robin regarded him uneasily. The time had not yet come when he could sit down and write, though she had brewed an excellent ink, and the paper waited on the desk in his room. She considered for a moment, then said brightly, "Don't you remember what Myron used to say? How when his friends got rich they first built a beautiful house, and then went abroad for three years? Let us go traveling; wouldn't you like it?"

The alacrity with which he acquiesced proved how well he liked it, and he started out at once to get the burros, and make ready for the expedition.

Robin baked and prepared as well as she could.

"It's a good thing I had a Southern grandmother," she soliloquized, as she put her beaten biscuit in the Dutch oven and pulled the coals over it. "And it's a good thing my mother crossed the plains and learned how to make biscuit in the mouth of her flour sack, and," as she rolled out some crackers, "it is a blessed good thing I went to cooking-school, but I wish that, instead of being so particular about the knobs on the candlesticks, the Pentateuch had given Sarah's recipe for making cakes with honey. Not that I have any honey, but I am sure we shall find some on this trip."

When they were all ready, and the burros stood waiting at the door, with Lassie jumping wildly about them, Adam wrote a placard which he stuck in the framework of the door. The stock had been turned loose on the mountain-side, and the house and stables secured as well as possible against any storms that might arise. The kittens had possession of one of the sheds. The puppies were to accompany them.

Robin had put on her long unused shoes, and a new gown that she had made out of a dark blue serge found hanging in her room. Adam looked at her approvingly from under his wide sombrero. She turned back, after going a few paces, and read the card.

WAIT!

April 5th.

Back in two weeks.

Look for smoke.