ROOF-TREE 257 



ried the delicious weather into memories to adorn 

 my walls. Every load that was sent home carried 

 my heart and happiness with it. The jewels I had 

 uncovered in the ddbris, or torn from the ledge in 

 the morning, I saw in the jambs, or mounted high 

 on the corners at night. Every day was filled with 

 great events. The woods held unknown treasures. 

 Those elder giants, frost and rain, had wrought 

 industriously ; now we would unearth from the leaf- 

 mould an ugly customer, a stone with a ragged 

 quartz face, or cavernous, and set with rock crystals 

 like great teeth, or else suggesting a battered and 

 worm-eaten skull of some old stone dog. These I 

 needed a sprinkling of for their quaintness, and to 

 make the wall a true compendium of the locality. 

 Then we would unexpectedly strike upon several 

 loads of beautiful blocks all in a nest; or we would 

 assault the ledge in a new place with wedge and 

 bar, and rattle down headers and stretchers that 

 surpassed any before. I had to be constantly on 

 the lookout for corner stone, for mine is a house of 

 seven corners, and on the strength and dignity of 

 the corners the beauty of the wall largely depends. 

 But when you bait your hook with your heart, the 

 fish always bite. "The boss is as good as six men 

 in the woods, getting out stone," flatteringly spoke 

 up the master-mason. Certain it is that no such 

 stone was found as when I headed the search. The 

 men saw indifferently with their eyes, but I looked 

 upon the ground with such desire that I saw what 

 was beneath the moss and the leaves. With them 



