As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles of timber.
"Has he done all that?" she asked.
"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his neighbors' eyes."
Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied themselves laying out the provisions it contained.
It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered.
"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell us what to do?"
"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd."
The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row.
"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The girls are watching you!"
They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of encouragement from the women.