My hive worked well, for we had five acres logged and set fire to the
same evening. On a dark night, a hundred or two of these large heaps
all on fire at once have a very fine effect, and shed a broad glare of
light for a considerable distance. In the month of July in the new
settlements, the whole country at night appears lit up by these fires.

I was anxious to commence building my house, so that I might have it
ready to receive my wife in before the winter commenced. My first step
towards it was to build a lime-heap. I calculated I should require for
plastering my walls and building my chimneys, about a hundred bushels.

We set to work, accordingly, and built an immense log-heap of all the
largest logs I could get together. It took at least the timber growing
on half an acre of land for this purpose, and kept five men and myself
busy all day to complete it. We made a frame of logs on the top of the
heap, to keep the stone from falling over the side. We drew for this
purpose twenty cart-loads of lime-stone, which we threw upon the summit
of the heap, having broken it small with a sledge-hammer; fire was then
applied to the heap, which was consumed by the next morning. But it
left such a mass of hot coals, that it was a week before the lime could
be collected and covered. This is the easiest and most expeditious way
of burning lime; but the lime is not so white, and there are more
pieces of unburnt stone, which make it not so good for plastering.

I built my house of elm-logs, thirty-six feet long by twenty-four feet
wide, which I divided into three rooms on the ground-floor, besides an
entrance-hall and staircase, and three bed-rooms up stairs. I was very
busy till October making the shingles,* roofing, cutting out the door
and window-spaces, and hewing the logs down inside the house.