XIII 



ROOF-TREE 



/'~ > \NE of the greatest pleasures of life is to build 

 ^^^ a house for one's self. There is a peculiar 

 satisfaction even in planting a tree from which you 

 hope to eat the fruit, or in the shade of which you 

 hope to repose. But how much greater the pleas- 

 ure in planting the roof-tree, the tree that bears the 

 golden apples of home and hospitality, and under 

 the protection of which you hope to pass the re- 

 mainder of your days! My grandmother said the 

 happiest day of her life was when she found herself 

 mistress of a little log-house in the woods. Grand- 

 father and she had built it mainly with their own 

 hands, and doubtless with as much eagerness and 

 solicitude as the birds build their nests. It was 

 made of birch and maple logs, the floor was of hewn 

 logs, and its roof of black-ash bark. But it was 

 home and fireside, a fqw square feet of the great, 

 wild, inclement, inhospitable out-of-doors subdued 

 and set about by four walls and made warm and 

 redolent of human hearts. I notice how eager all 

 men are in building their houses, how they linger 

 about them, or even about their proposed sites. 

 When the cellar is being dug, they want to take a 



