"No, that's a black feller."
"And this?"
"Good colour, but he ain't got no grain—all gnurly—as the feller says."
Sometime this mason will be able to see like that into the hearts of men....
A stone study sixteen by twenty-three feet, built about a chimney—faced stone in and out, windows barred for the vines, six-inch beams to hold a low gable roof, and a damper in the chimney; the door of oak, wooden pegs to cover the screw-insets, a few rugs, a few books, the magic of firelight in the stone cave—a Mediterranean vision of curving shore to the East, and the single door overhanging the Lake—to the suspense of distance and Southern constellations.
I laugh at this—it sounds so pompous and costly—but it is the shop of a poor man. The whole Lake-frontage, as I have told you, cost no more than a city lot; and with sand on the beach, and stone on the shore and nearby fields, it all came to be as cheaply as a wooden cabin—indeed, it had to. That winter after we had left for the City, the elms were put out—a few six-inch trunks, brought with their own earth frozen to them—a specimen of oak, walnut, hickory (so hard to move)—but an elm over-tone was the plan, and a clump of priestly pines near the stable. These are still in the revulsions of transition; their beauty is yet to be. Time brings that, as it will smoke the beams, clothe the stone-work in vines, establish the roses and wistaria on the Southern exposure, slope and mellow and put the bloom over all.
We remained until November and returned the following April to stay. In the meantime the three children—a girl of ten and two younger boys—had almost their final bit of public schooling, though I was not so sure of that then; in fact, I planned to have them continue their training from April on in the small town school until the summer vacation. This was tried for a few weeks, the result of the experience hastening us toward the task of teaching our own.