"This is my bed," said he. "I'll be up at five in the morning. Then I'll
be making tea here by the fireplace to wash down some jerked meat and a
hunk o' bread. At six or a little after I'll be ready to go with you
again. Jack Kelso is going to look after the store to-morrow."

He began to laugh.

"Ye know when I went out of the tavern that little vixen stood peekin'
into the window--Bim, Jack's girl," said Abe. "I asked her why she didn't
go in and she said she was scared. 'Who you 'fraid of?' I asked. 'Oh, I
reckon that boy,' says she. And honestly her hand trembled when she took
hold of my arm and walked to her' father's house with me."

Abe snickered as he spread another blanket. "What a cut-up she is! Say,
we'll have some fun watching them two I reckon," he said.

The logs were ready two days after the cutting began. Martin Waddell and
Samuel Hill sent teams to haul them. John Cameron and Peter Lukins had
brought the window sash and some clapboards from Beardstown in a small
flat boat. Then came the day of the raising--a clear, warm day early in
September. All the men from the village and the near farms gathered to
help make a home for the newcomers. Samson and Jack Kelso went out for a
hunt after the cutting and brought in a fat buck and many grouse for the
bee dinner, to which every woman of the neighborhood made a contribution
of cake or pie or cookies or doughnuts.

"What will be my part?" Samson had inquired of Kelso.

"Nothing but a jug of whisky and a kind word and a house warming," Kelso