"monarch of all I surveyed." What did I survey? The
church wall on the north; on the south, my own screen of
spruce boards, now well dry; on the east and west, the
ten-foot fences which I had built myself; and over
that on the west, God's deep, transparent sky, in which
I could still see a planet whose name I did not know. It
was a heaven, indeed, which He had said was as much mine
as his!

The first thing, of course, was to get out my frame.
This was a work of weeks. The next thing was to raise
it. And here the first step was the only hard one, nor
was this so hard as it would seem. The highest wall of
my house was no higher than the ten-foot fence we had
already built on the church alley. The western wall, if,
indeed, a frame house has any walls, was only eight feet
high. For foundations and sills, I dug deep post-holes,
in which I set substantial cedar posts which I knew would
outlast my day, and I framed my sills into these. I made
the frame of the western wall lie out upon the ground in
one piece; and I only needed a purchase high enough, and
a block with repeating pulleys strong enough, to be able
to haul up the whole frame by my own strength,
unassisted. The high purchase I got readily enough by
making what we called a "three-leg," near twenty feet
high, just where my castle was to stand. I had no
difficulty in hauling this into its place by a solid
staple and ring, which for this purpose I drove high in
the church wall. My multiplying pulley did the rest; and
after it was done, I took out the staple and mended the