Article 8th. It is agreed upon that when the lumber, plank, etc., is delivered the said Andrew will furnish the money to pay for the same and will continue to make payment as the work progresses. Article 9th. The said Reiff and Hume are to purchase the lumber and commence the work immediately, and further agree that the carpenters’ work shall be so forwarded as to let the plasterers in to commence their job by the first or middle of September next, so that the house can be completely finished by 25 December, 1835. As no contract has been made for the painting, the said Andrew will have the priming done as fast as the work goes on. It is understood that there is to be the same number of large fluted columns in front as formerly if thought necessary, and it is further understood that the said Reiff and Hume will do all and everything in relation to the carpenters’ work of said building as though every item had been separately specified, making a complete finish of the carpenters’ and joiners’ work of said building, finding everything except the articles of locks and glass heretofore mentioned. In witness we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 1st of January, 1835. Joseph Reiff William C. Hume [Illustration: Uncle Alfred, who served Old Hickory during his lifetime and now sleeps near his side in the Hermitage garden.] [Illustration: Sunday morning at the Hermitage Church in the early forties. General Jackson has just dismounted from his saddlehorse tied to the tree in the right foreground, which tree is still standing. (From an old print.)] The work was got under way at once, but the building was not declared completed until the summer of 1836—more than eighteen months after the reconstruction was started. “Hands can not be got,” Colonel Armstrong wrote Jackson during the summer of 1835, “still we are doing the best we can.” It was the era of inflation and easy money, and labor was scarce. So the work dragged along; and, as is not unusual in building operations, the cost of the finished job considerably exceeded the original estimate. Colonel Armstrong in his first letter expressed the opinion that the work could be done for $2,000 or $2,500; in a later letter he said “$2,500 or $3,000 will complete the whole work”; the contract with Reiff and Hume was at a figure of $3,950; and when the final settlement was made the total was $5,125—not including $900 for plastering and $400 for painting. To add to the General’s troubles at this time came a calamitous failure of the cotton crop and he wrote sadly to Andrew about the necessity for economizing. “Unless the farm produces enough to pay its own expenses, my means here will be fully exhausted in paying for the finishing of the house and restoring to it the furniture destroyed.”