The beams and plates and joists and rafters for the house were planned and, with axe and broad-axe and saw, Jason and Rubens labored in the forest until oak and pine were cut and hewed, true to the line, and were then dragged by toiling oxen to the site of the house of which they were to be the stay and strength. The farmers round about assembled for the raising, there were heavings and shoutings, the parts were reared under the hoarse overseeing of Carpenter Rubens and the great timbers, tongue in socket, pinned lastingly together, stood aloft, the sturdy white outline of a pleasant home to face the roadway. What days they were for Jason as the two men labored afterward for weeks until the house stood all complete from cellar to roof-peak, and even painted--white, with green blinds, of course. Furnished it was too, well furnished for the country. It was the finest house in the neighborhood and Jason walked through the rooms with that feeling which comes to a man of purpose when he looks upon the thing accomplished. Not yet, though, was the place ready for Melissa. There was much to be done besides the mere building of a shelter, but, even now, the front part of it must be sacred for her. There Jason nailed up the door solidly. What comfort could a farmer's wife have with merely a house to live in! Here must be all convenience for her outdoor work in connection with the household and all should be pleasant to look upon. Jason settled down resolutely to what was yet to come. Obviously the old log barn had outlasted its original purposes. Its small stable no longer afforded shelter enough for the increasing herd of cattle and the horses nor its mows room for the hay and grain. There must be a frame barn, a big one, with high, wide doors into which a team with a load might be driven and with long stables and mows and roof room enough for all contingencies of harvest. The year after the completion of the house, the barn was built and the one of logs abandoned. But the barn had not absorbed Jason's thoughts so fully as had the house.