had got together money enough to pay for the work. He had lately enlarged
the scope of his industry by turning gate-posts and urns for the tops of
them, which had become very popular, for the front yards of the farm and
village houses in a wide stretch of country. They sold more steadily than
the smaller wares, the cups, and tops, and little vases and platters
which had once been the output of his lathe; after the first season the
interest of the summer folks in these fell off; but the gate posts and
the urns appealed to a lasting taste in the natives.

Claxon wished to put the finishing touches on the house himself, and he
was willing to suspend more profitable labors to do so. After some
attempts at plastering he was forced to leave that to the plasterers, but
he managed the clap-boarding, with Clementina to hand him boards and
nails, and to keep him supplied with the hammer he was apt to drop at
critical moments. They talked pretty constantly at their labors, and in
their leisure, which they spent on the brown needles under the pines at
the side of the house. Sometimes the hammering or the talking would be
interrupted by a voice calling, from a passing vehicle in the hidden
roadway, something about urns. Claxon would answer, without troubling
himself to verify the inquirer; or moving from his place, that he would
get round to them, and then would hammer on, or talk on with Clementina.

One day in October a carriage drove up to the door, after the work on the
house had been carried as far as Claxon's mood and money allowed, and he
and Clementina were picking up the litter of his carpentering. He had
replaced the block of wood which once served at the front door by some
steps under an arbor of rustic work; but this was still so novel that the
younger children had not outgrown their pride in it and were playing at
house-keeping there. Clementina ran around to the back door and out
through the front entry in time to save the visitor and the children from