mother's at the window. Then the hired man chanced to pass and paused
a moment to make admiring comment. And, later, the carpenter man came
around the corner of the house and, when he saw, offered a bit of
professional advice and voluntarily contributed another board. Even
the boy's dog, as though he had heard the news that the very birds
were discussing so freely in the tree tops, came hurrying home to
manifest his interest. Keep it secret! How _could_ the boy keep
it secret! But the little girl did not know. Until he was almost ready
to tell her, the little girl did not know. Almost he was ready to tell
her, when--But that belongs to the other part of my story.

About the man in his bare, lonely, room in the great city, the world
in its madness raged--struggling, pushing, crowding, jostling,
scrambling--a swirling, writhing, mass of life--but the man did not
heed. On every side, this life went rushing, roaring, rumbling,
thundering, whirring, shrieking, clattering by. But the man noticed
the world now no more than it noticed him. In his Yesterdays he had
found something to do. He had found the only thing that a man, who
knows himself to be a man, can do in truth to his manhood. Again, in
his Yesterdays, he was building a house for the little girl who lived
next door--the little girl who did not know.

Someday this childish old world will grow weary of its games of war
and wealth. Someday it will lose interest in its playthings--banks,
and stocks, and markets. Someday it will lose faith in its fairies of
fame, its giants of position and power. Then will the disconsolate,
forlorn, old world turn to Mother Nature to learn from her that the
only Occupation that is of real and lasting worth is the one
Occupation in which all of Mother Nature's children have
fellowship--the Occupation of home building.