The oxen went at a brisker pace on the unobstructed surface of the lake, and the travellers soon came to a little creek not far up which was the clearing that Seth Beeman had made during the previous summer. In the midst of it stood the little log house that was henceforth to be their home, the shed for the cattle, and a stack of wild hay, inconspicuous among log heaps almost as large as they, looking anything but homelike with the smokeless chimney and pathless approach. Nor, when entered, was the bare interior much more cheerful. A fire, presently blazing on the hearth, soon enlivened it. The floor was neatly swept with a broom fashioned of hemlock twigs by Job’s ready hands. The little stock of furniture was brought in. The pewter tableware was ranged on the rough corner shelves. Ruth added here and there such housewifely touches as only a woman can give. The change, wrought in so brief a space, seemed a magical transformation. What two hours ago was but a barren crib of rough, clay-chinked logs, was now a furnished living-room, cozy with rude, homelike comfort. Then the place was hanselled with its first regularly prepared dinner, the first meal beneath its roof at which a woman had presided. Job, loath to leave the most humanized habitation that he had seen for months, set forth for his own lonely cabin. Except the unneighborly inmates of the Fort, these were his nearest neighbors, and to them, for his old comrade’s sake, he felt a closer friendship than had warmed his heart for many a year. Though it was March, winter lacked many days of being spent in this latitude, and, during their continuance, Seth was busy with his axe, widening the clearing with slow, persistent inroads upon the surrounding forest, and piling the huge log heaps for next spring’s burning. Nathan gave a willing and helpful hand to the piling of the brush, and took practical lessons in that accomplishment so necessary to the pioneer—the woodsman’s craft. Within doors his mother, with little Martha for her companion, plied cards and spinning-wheel, with the frugal store of wool and flax brought from the old home. So their busy hands kept loneliness at bay, even amid the dreariness of the wintry wilderness. At last the south wind blew with a tempered breath. Hitherto unseen stumps appeared above the settling snow, the gray haze of woods purpled with a tinge of spring, and the caw of returning crows pleased their ears, tired of the winter’s silence.