Once the building started, it went swiftly. Still working from dawn to dark, Joe and Ellis built up the walls, laid the roof poles, and covered the roof with shakes. Joe made a stone boat, a flat sledge and hauled clay from a bed that was about a mile up the creek. While Joe and Ellis worked on the inside partitions, Emma and the children started chinking. The youngsters worked so enthusiastically on the lower cracks that in places there was more clay than log.
Summer was well under way when they had their first visitor.
He came riding up from the Oregon Trail, a thin sliver of a man on an enormous white horse. But though he was thin, he was a strong man. Muscles rippled smoothly beneath his homespun shirt, and his smile was pleasant. He slid from his big horse and spoke with a pronounced New England twang.
"Howdy, folks."
"Hello!" Joe said warmly.
The thin man extended his hand. "My name's Winterson, Henry Winterson. I live—" with a gesture of his thumb he indicated the entire west "—about four miles out there."
"We're the Tower family," Joe introduced the individual members, "and this is Ellis Garner."
"Glad to know you!" Winterson acknowledged. "Glad to know you!" He came to Barbara. "Woo-hoo! Double glad! If I wasn't already married to Martha, you wouldn't get away!"
"Careful," Joe grinned. "Barbara and Ellis are figuring on being married before very long."
"Well, strike me down! We not only got close neighbors but there's going to be a wedding! Martha will be plumb out of her mind when she hears that! When's the big day?"