Never better man for conquering a forest or making good soil yield the crops it has owed than this same brown-bearded Jason Goodell. Personally strong, six full feet in height, though a trifle stooping, and slouchy in his gait, thewed like a draft-horse, broad of forehead and strong of chin, with firm mouth and steady gray eyes, this man was one to accomplish things as thoroughly and doggedly as Victor Hugo's Gilliatt toiling sturdily at the wrecked ship. Like Gilliatt, too, Jason was toiling for love's sake. He had never spoken of his passion to Melissa Trumbull, but they had studied together in the little district school, had grown up together, had confided their plans and hopes to each other and, until Jason left the employ of old man Trumbull and began work on his own "eighty," had been almost constantly together. To Jason, reticent, and timid as well, in a matter of this sort, it never occurred to make a definite engagement, and to Melissa, black-eyed, gingham-clad, buoyant and with plenty of work to do, the situation doubtless presented itself with the same aspect. No pledged word, though, could have made the matter more fixed and serious than it was, at least to Jason. What need of words? The first thing to do was to make a home for the occupancy of two young married people. So Jason built a rude cabin and lived in it alone and began clearing his land. At the end of the second year he had fifteen acres in crops of grass and grain, and the beginning of a herd of cattle and a drove of hogs, and was counted by his neighbors as a young man who would be well off some day. They were right in their conclusion. Jason was the one to succeed as a farmer. Living simply, working untiringly, the accomplishments of the isolated man were a surprise even to the rugged farmers who knew him well. At the end of the third year a new field had been hewed into the forest and the land first cleared had become more easily tillable. Fire had fed on the stumps. Half a dozen cows were feeding on the grassland, the hogs were fattening on last year's corn crop and chickens and turkeys cackled and called about the rough log-barn. Butter and pork and eggs had a value at the nearest little town, and Jason had saved money. He bought another eighty acres of woodland--land was cheap then--and began to plan the building of a house. There was Melissa! No log house should this mansion be but one fit for a bride's reception. It should be a framed house, with all proper rooms, clap-boarded as to the sides and shingled as to the roof. There should be a porch in front and the building should be of two stories. Jason brooded fondly over it all and planned and dreamed. He consulted often with Jim Rubens, the farmer carpenter of the locality: "Never saw a man so wrapped up in his house-buildin' in all my life!" said Rubens.