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WE TAKE POSSESSION 41 
chamber eighteen by twenty-six, with closets five 
feet deep, to be used as a sleeping room for the 
men. I intended to change the sitting room, 
which ran across the main house, into a dining and 
reading room twenty feet by twenty-five, and to 
improve the shape and convenience of the kitchen 
by pantry and lavatory. There must also be a 
well-appointed bathroom on the upper floor, and 
set tubs in the kitchen. My men would dig the 
cellar, and the mason was to put in the founda- 
tion walls (twelve inches thick and two feet 
above ground), the cross or division walls, and the 
chimneys. He was also to put down a first-class 
cement floor over the whole cellar and ap- 
proach. The house was to be heated by a hot- 
water system; and I afterward let this job to 
a city man, who put in a satisfactory plant for 
$500. 
We had hardly finished with the carpenter 
and the mason when we saw our wagons turn- 
ing into the grounds. We left the contractors 
to their measurements, plans, and figures, while 
we hastened to turn the teams back, as they 
must go to the cottage on the north forty. The 
horses looked a little done up by the heat and 
the unaccustomed journey, but Thompson said: 
“They’re all right, — stood it first-rate.” 
The cottage and out-buildings furnished scanty 
accommodations for men and beasts, but they 
were all that we could provide. I told the men 
to make themselves and the horses as comfort- 
