I had worked diligently with the men to set up some
fifty feet of the fence where it parted us from an alley-
way, for I wanted a chance to dry some of the boards,
which had just been hauled from a raft in the North
River. The truckmen had delivered them helter-
skelter, and they lay, still soaking, above each other on
our vacant lot.
We turned all our force on this first piece of fence,
and had so much of it done that, by calling off the men
just before sundown, I was able to set up all the wet
boards, each with one end resting on the fence and the
other on the ground, so that they took the air on both
sides, and would dry more quickly. Of course this left
a long, dark tunnel underneath.
As the other hands gathered up their tools and made
ready to go, a fellow named McLoughlin, who had gone out
with one of the three months' regiments not long before,
said:--
"I would not be sorry to sleep there. I have slept
in many a worse place than that in Dixie"; and on that he
went away, leaving me to make some measurements which I
needed the next day. But what he said rested in my mind,
and, as it happened, directed the next twelve years of my
life.
Why should not I live here? How often my mother had
said that if she had only a house of her own she should
be perfectly happy! Why should not we have a house of
our own here, just as comfortable as if we had gone a
thousand miles out on the prairie to build it, and a
great deal nearer to the book-stores, to the good music,
to her old friends, and to my good wages? We had talked
a thousand times of moving together to Kansas, where I
was to build a little hut for her, and we were to be
very happy together.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124