James ground his axe, to cut logs and hew them, on the two sides, for the walls of a house; but Emily persuaded him to cut and hew timber for a frame barn, telling him the camp was good enough; that she did not want a house to take care of; she wanted to spin and weave, and get something to keep house with; that she was just as happy as she could be in the camp; and that he needed a barn to hold the hay he was now obliged to stack out; he also needed a barnfloor to thresh his grain and to store it afterwards.
Thus exhorted and encouraged, James, convinced that his wife was really well content to live in the camp, cut and hewed his barn frame in the winter, and also cut logs sufficient to make boards to cover it, and hauled them to the bank of the creek, sawed up bolts for shingles, and in the evening split out the shingles, and shaved them before the fire in the camp, enough for the barn and house both; had also cut logs enough to furnish boards for the roof of the house and for doors, window-frames and sashes, for he had tools to make sashes. When the spring freshet came, he rolled his logs into the stream, and hired two men, who were river-drivers, to drive them to the mill, and the first of April raised his barn, and had it fit to put hay in by the time it was needed, though the doors were not made till after wheat harvest.
A Mr. Litchfield, an emigrant, had bought the farm that James first looked at; it had taken all his means, and he was obliged to work out part of the time to get a little money and provisions. While at work on his barn, James hired Litchfield to clear three acres of land, and paid him in pork, wheat to sow, wheat flour to eat, and by letting him have his cattle to plough. That autumn James dug a cellar and stoned it, and in the winter hauled the logs to build the walls, and hewed them on two sides; hauled bricks from the mouth of the creek to build a chimney and put them in the hovel, which now made an excellent storehouse for the materials to build the house. Indeed, everything was done that could be done till the walls were raised; but Emily manifested no more desire for a house than at first, and still clung to the camp; and James sold pork and corn and flour to emigrants, who began to multiply, going west, and had caught coons and foxes and otters enough, in the previous fall and winter, to pay all the expense incurred in building his barn, and after all his expense in outfits and labor, was a hundred dollars better off in money than at the time he left the Monongahela.
Just after wheat harvest, James received a letter from Bertie, saying that if he would come to Swatara in his birch, himself and Ned Conly would return with him, and bring his sheep.
“I know what they want,” said James; “they want to come in the birch, and see the rough side of life, and that’s the reason they want to come now, while we are in the camp; but I wish we had a good house for them.”
“I don’t. They wouldn’t have half so good a time; they want to see just what beginning in the woods is, and what they must come to if they take it up, and perhaps it will sicken them.”
“It won’t sicken Bertie. But where shall we put them? In the loft they will stifle this hot weather. If we give them our bedroom, and put our bed in the kitchen, there won’t be room to eat, for the loom and the spinning-wheels take up the greater part of it.”
“Put ‘em in the barn.”
“Indeed I won’t put Bertie and your brother in the barn. I shouldn’t sleep a wink myself.”
“Take the cloth that was on the wagon and make a tent. You make the poles, and I’ll cut and make the rest; put a good bed in it, and they can build a fire before it, and make believe they are Indians, if they want to. I know that’ll suit Ned; he is running over with that sort of thing.”