70 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



fore the discussions were over. It was not to 

 be a "contract" job, with a lump sum in pay- 

 ment. I was to buy all materials and pay for 

 all labor by the day; our builder would find the 

 men and engage to keep them at their work, 

 seeing that we got our money's worth. We 

 trusted him. The work went through from 

 first to last without a bobble. 



The bills of lumber bashed me a bit, remem- 

 bering the cost of lumber at the retail yards at 

 Omaha. The log walls of the house alone, 

 which were to be six inches thick, would take 

 the equivalent of 22,500 board feet; and there 

 were a couple of carloads of other stuff to be 

 got sills, and joists, and framing material, 

 and flooring and roofing, to say nothing of 

 shingles ; and our idea called for a multitude of 

 oak and cypress doors and windows which 

 would have to be built to our order. If we 

 had to buy all this from the trade, even at the 

 lower retail prices that ruled in Arkansas, our 

 money wouldn't see us through. We had to 

 find some other way. 



I went into the pine country in the lower 

 part of the state, two hundred miles below Fay- 

 etteville, and began rooting around through 

 the woods, scraping acquaintance with the saw- 



