He was privy to all their differences of opinion
and all their disputes about the house. He knew just
where to insist upon his own ideas, and where to yield.
He was really building several other houses, but he
gave the Laphams the impression that he was doing none
but theirs.

The work was not begun till the frost was thoroughly
out of the ground, which that year was not before the end
of April. Even then it did not proceed very rapidly.
Lapham said they might as well take their time to it;
if they got the walls up and the thing closed in before
the snow flew, they could be working at it all winter.
It was found necessary to dig for the kitchen; at that
point the original salt-marsh lay near the surface,
and before they began to put in the piles for the foundation
they had to pump. The neighbourhood smelt like the hold
of a ship after a three years' voyage. People who had
cast their fortunes with the New Land went by professing
not to notice it; people who still "hung on to the Hill"
put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and told each other
the old terrible stories of the material used in filling up
the Back Bay.

Nothing gave Lapham so much satisfaction in the whole
construction of his house as the pile-driving. When
this began, early in the summer, he took Mrs. Lapham
every day in his buggy and drove round to look at it;
stopping the mare in front of the lot, and watching
the operation with even keener interest than the little