He was directed to Hackensack.
With the falling darkness again upon the hills, he saw that certain crowded, mid-growth trees were better down. The fine thought of building his cabin of them occurred. By the time he reached Hackensack, the house of logs was so dear in thought, that he wanted nothing short of a cabinet-joiner for such a precious task. That night he met Jake Robin, who was sick of nailing at houses in rows, a job that had long since ceased to afford deep breaths to his capacity.
The next day Morning moved to Hackensack, and Jake was at work.... Three thousand he had lost gambling ... he wished he had it now. Much more had been lost, and not so cleanly, in reaching the final Boabdil realization, but he had enough. Presently he was helping Jake, and there was joy in it.
They tapped a spring some thirty feet beneath the humped shoulder of the hill; built a shed for the horse he had not yet found, and then fitted the cabin to the fire-place of concrete and valley stone. One sizeable room it was, that faced the open south from the brow of the hill.
A fine unfolding—this love of Morning’s for wood itself, and woods. Over a half-hundred trees were his own—elm, beech, hickory, oak, ash, and maple—and like a fine clean colony of idealists they stood meditating.... One never knows the quality of wood until one builds his own house. Opening the timbers for the big mortices—each was a fresh and fragrant discovery. Jake and he lingered long, after the cabin was roofed, over the heavy oak flooring, and the finishing of windows and doors and frames. They built some furniture together of hickory, which is a wood a man should handle with reverence, for it is fine in its way as wheat and grapes and honey and wild olives. Hickory answers graciously to the work of the hand, and, like a good dog, flourishes with men.... They built a table and bed-frame and a chest of drawers; and Morning at last went to Hackensack for pots, kettles, and tea things. Jake Robin, like one who has built a ship, was loath to leave without trying the cabin. Morning kept him busy in the clearing, long after he was in the mood to start work on the play. There was a platform to build for the pump; also a certain rustic bench. The shed needed tinkering; an extra cabinet for books was indispensable—and screens.... No one had ever let Jake play before in his life.... Moreover, he was paid for the extra hour required to walk to and from town. All Hack heard about it.
“You’ll need a chicken-coop——”
“No,” said Morning. The look on Jake’s face was like old Amoya’s in Tokyo, when the rickshaw-runner was forbidden to take him to the Yoshuwara.
“I can fit you up a little ice-box near the spring—so’s you’ll pump it full of water, and keep your vittles——”
Morning wanted the stillness for the play, but he couldn’t refuse. Two days more. Then Jake scratched his head.
“You’ll be wantin’ a vine on the cabin,” he ventured. “I know the man who has the little ivies.”