MAKING THE HOME. 147 



jority can not secure such an one, and so must carve their 

 own home out of the virgin forest. Nor is this such a 

 dreadful undertaking as it appears at the outset, the trees 

 and vines grow so rapidly, and it is such a pleasure to 

 watch their increase and note how steadily order is form- 

 ing out of chaos and comfort and beauty marching to the 

 front. 



We know all about it, because our own home was started 

 amid a forest of tall, deadened trees, with a straggling 

 field of corn growing in their midst, and sand-spurs so 

 luxuriant that every step was painful and almost impossi- 

 ble until a plow had turned under the obnoxious vandals. 

 The white, ghostly-looking trees had to be hewn down, cut 

 up and rolled away in piles to be burnt, the stumps also 

 grubbed and burned out, and the corn laid low before the 

 carpenters could even lay the foundation for the house. 



The kitchen, which is generally detached from the main 

 house, was built first, and the two members of the family 

 who preceded the rest in their flight from the chilly ^^orth 

 lived therein, cooking on an oil stove out of doors for two 

 months. The room was commodious enough, twelve by 

 eighteen feet ; but for a dwelling, after a large, three-story 

 city house, with all modern conveniences, was a somewhat 

 bewildering change, and the wild surroundings of a native 

 forest, and the rat-tat-tat of hammers on the main house, 

 and the thud of falling trees all day, the weird glare of a 

 hundred fires illuminating the landscape at night, flashing 

 back from that little mirror we have spoken of— all these 

 things added not a little to the oddity of a novel scene, 

 until irresistibly arose the recollection and personal apjDli- 

 cation of the famous nursery rhyme, of the "Little old 

 woman who fell asleep on the king's highway," who, bewil- 

 dered by the curtailment of her skirts by a peddler while 

 she slept, exclaimed : 



