In those days when home or barn or mill was to be built the "raising" (by which we meant the putting into place the large, heavy timbers for the framework) was made the occasion of a great gathering. From miles around, the sturdy, broad-shouldered farmers and their deep-bosomed and hardly less broad-shouldered wives, and even the children, would come trooping along to take part in the raising, the men attending to the heavier work of the building while the women folk took care of the more delicate labor of the cooking, and when we had our raising there was such a swarming from far and wide that the Sisterhood, aided by the visiting wives and daughters, were driven to make such mighty preparations for the hungry workmen we sometimes wondered where all the food was to come from; but our kind helpers, knowing the rigorous state of our larder and relishing not overmuch our thin and ghostly fare, brought along such a rich store of meats and jellies and preserves as threatened to ruin forever the stomachs of the Solitary. I grieve, moreover, to say that on this occasion many a Brother--I among them--and even Sister, did in the hilarity and good cheer vary so much from our usual temperance as to suffer in body and mind for some days after our well-meaning friends had left us. Not the least of the joyousness of this raising was that in the evening when we were gathered, tired and hungry as wolves, about the long, wooden tables in Kedar, Sister Bernice and I in those few days saw more of each other than in all the months since that blissful love feast. It hath often puzzled me, even now I know not the explanation, that it happened every meal-time Sister Bernice waited on me; for the Sisters and the wives insisting the men must be fed first, knowing no doubt our fretful natures when hungry, gave zest to the meals by adding their womanly presence in the serving of the food. So, as I have said, it chanced that Sister Bernice waited on me, and whether or not the others observed the foolishness of our sweet love, I only know that when, most unaccountably, in handing me the meats, and the bread and the like, her hands would touch me, I came more than once so near grasping those wonderful little, soft things in mine, that most of the meal-time I was distressed lest I do some utterly foolish thing that would make my dear sister and me the laughingstock of every one present, and this I determined must not be, at least for her sake.