ROOF-TREE. 



ONE 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 pleasure 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 remainder 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. Grandfather 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 few 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 hand in ; 

 the earth evidently looks a little different, a little 

 more friendly and congenial, than other earth. When 



