HARDWOOD RECORD 



THE BUILDING OF THE BARN 



Two boys bring the slate up a long ladder from the ground, 

 piling it on their left shoulders, and mounting slowly 

 round by round. 



The old man takes it from them, weighs each slate in his hand ; 

 giving it a finishing touch at the edges with his slate- 

 hammer, and then, knocking two holes in it with the 

 sharp butt-end for the fastenings, he passes it on to his 

 companions. 



II. 



There is much more here than a stone barn a-building, and a 

 handful of workmen. 



The fires are here that welded the clay into blue-stone and slate 

 in Palaeozoic ages. 



The forests of yellow-pine of Georgia that furnished the timber 

 are here, and the great primeval trees from whose cones 

 those forests sprang. 



The men are here who first deserted their mountain caverns and 

 built the earliest stone-cave in the open. 



The man is here, too, who shaped the first knife of flint, and he 

 who laid it aside for iron, and the one who first imitated 

 thorns in metal and dreamed of nails, and the original 

 tamer of horses, and the framer of ladders and modeler 

 of wheels. 



Vulcan is here and Tubal-Cain and Thor and all the great 

 artisans and inventors. 



The new stone barn is indeed the workshop of gods and demi- 

 gods, and their very temple. 



It is rooted, nave, transept and choir, in the inmost heart of the 

 first Creation. 



Here converge all the forces of the past and the thoughts of 

 every epoch. 



