him stood the lofty frame of the building this evening raised, with all
its white tracery of beam and rafter, a new but welcome feature in the
landscape. A frame barn is the first ambition of the settler's heart;
without one much loss and inconvenience is felt. Hay and grain are not
stacked out as in other countries, but are all placed within the shelter
of the barn; these containing, as they often do, the whole hay crop,
besides the grain and accommodation 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