Her room he worked on alone, with a little help if he did not know how to join the different parts. Every thing was plain and simple, after plans of his own, but the Harvester laid floors and made window casings, seats, and doors of wood that the big factories of Grand Rapids used in veneering their finest furniture. When one of his carpenters pointed out this to him, and suggested that he sell his lumber to McLean and use pine flooring from the mills the Harvester laughed at him.
“I don't say that I could afford to buy burl maple, walnut, and cherry for wood-work,” said the Harvester. “I could not, but since I have it, you can stake your life I won't sell it and build my home of cheap, rapidly decaying wood. The best I have goes into this cabin and what remains will do to sell. I have an idea that when this is done it is going to appear first rate. Anyway, it will be solid enough to last a thousand years, and with every day of use natural wood grows more beautiful. When we get some tables, couches, and chairs made from the same timber as the casings and the floors, I think it will be fine. I want money, but I don't want it bad enough to part with the BEST of anything I have for it. Go carefully and neatly there; it will have to be changed if you don't.”
So the work progressed rapidly. When the carpenters had finished the last stroke on the big veranda they remained a day more and made flower boxes, and a swinging couch, and then the greedy Harvester kept the best man with him a week longer to help on the furniture.
“Ain't you going to say a word about her, Langston?” asked this man as they put a mirror-like surface on a curly maple dressing table top.
“Her!” ejaculated the Harvester. “What do you mean?”
“I haven't seen you bathe anywhere except in the lake since I have been here,” said the carpenter. “Do you want me to think that a porcelain tub, this big closet, and chest of drawers are for you?”
A wave of crimson swept over the Harvester.
“No, they are not for me,” he said simply. “I don't want to be any more different from other men than I can help, although I know that life in the woods, the rigid training of my mother, and the reading of only the books that would aid in my work have made me individual in many of my thoughts and ways. I suppose most men, just now, would tell you anything you want to know. There is only one thing I can say: The best of my soul and brain, the best of my woods and store-house, the best I can buy with money is not good enough for her. That's all. For myself, I am getting ready to marry, of course. I think all normal men do and that it is a matter of plain common-sense that they should. Life with the right woman must be infinitely broader and better than alone. Are you married?”
“Yes. Got a wife and four children.”
“Are you sorry?”