“On the contrary, you don't want to do any such thing——you should leave most of it for to-morrow.”
“I had forgotten there would be any to-morrow. It seems as if the day would end it and set me adrift again.”
“You are going to awake in the gold room with the sun shining on your face in the morning, and it's going to keep on all your life. Now if you've got a smile in your anatomy, bring it to the surface, for just beyond this tree lies happiness for you.”
His voice was clear and steady now, his confidence something contagious. There was a lovely smile on her face as she looked at him, and stepped into the line of light crossing the driveway; and then she stopped and cried, “Oh lovely! Lovely! Lovely!” over and over. Then maybe the Harvester was not glad he had planned, worked unceasingly, and builded as well as he knew.
The cabin of large, peeled, golden oak logs, oiled to preserve them, nestled like a big mushroom on the side of the hill. Above and behind the building the trees arose in a green setting. The roof was stained to their shades. The wide veranda was enclosed in screening, over which wonderful vines climbed in places, and round it grew ferns and deep-wood plants. Inside hung big baskets of wild growth; there was a wide swinging seat, with a back rest, supported by heavy chains. There were chairs and a table of bent saplings and hickory withes. Two full stories the building arose, and the western sun warmed it almost to orange-yellow, while the graceful vines crept toward the roof.
The Girl looked at the rapidly rising hedge on each side of her, at the white floor of the drive, and long and long at the cabin.
“You did all this since February?” she asked.
“Even to transforming the landscape,” answered the Harvester.
“Oh I wish it was not coming night!” she cried. “I don't want the dark to come, until you have told me the name of every tree and shrub of that wonderful hedge, and every plant and vine of the veranda; and oh I want to follow up the driveway and see that beautiful little creek—listen to it chuckle and laugh! Is it always glad like that? See the ferns and things that grow on the other side of it! Why there are big beds of them. And lilies of the valley by the acre! What is that yellow around the corner?”
“Never mind that now,” said the Harvester, guiding her up the steps, along the gravelled walk to the screen that he opened, and over a flood of gold light she crossed the veranda, and entered the door.