The Log House by the Lake | Page 8

the passengers on board an emigrant ship, and can admit as much more as we please. There, make yourselves at home. Father will now do the honours, and Jem is boiling the kettle for tea in the kitchen. I must be off, and hope to be back soon with D'Arcy and your traps."
Away went Philip down to the boat, whence his father with the rest had been bringing up her lading. Who could have recognised in the energetic, high-spirited backwoodsman Philip had become, the refined and somewhat sedate and stiff young student of a year ago. By-the-bye, the kitchen of which he spoke was a lean-to of birch-bark, under which a camp stove had been placed; near it was a shed prepared for the reception of the stores, among which Peter proposed to take up his abode. Philip's plan of fitting up the cottage was much admired. To the walls and roof he had first nailed some common canvas, on this he had pasted newspapers, which he had again covered with a common cheerful-looking paper, such as is used generally for covering walls. The table itself consisted of some rough planks nailed to tressels, and the bedsteads were formed of rough pine poles with canvas stretched across them. Shelves and pegs round the rooms would enable their inmates to keep them as neat as cabins.
The voices of the rest of the party were heard sooner than was expected. "We pressed the third boat on the lake into our service and have brought everything," said Philip, entering with a slight young man, who, in spite of a very rough, much worn costume, looked the gentleman. "I have the pleasure of introducing my friend Mr Lawrence D'Arcy, my fellow labourer, who, let me tell you, made every inch of the furniture of our mansion in a wondrous brief time. He had not begun it yesterday morning, for he was helping me to paper the walls till nearly noon."
"It is the work of a self-taught artist," said Lawrence D'Arcy. "But, really, there is little to boast of in having put together a few rough poles. The plan is the only thing to merit commendation."
Of course everybody thanked Mr D'Arcy, and he at once felt himself perfectly at home. Never did the finest baronial mansion afford more satisfaction to the occupiers than did Philip's quickly-built cottage. It stood on a platform on the side of the hill, looking south over the lake, and sheltered by the ground above it from the icy blast of the north. There was not space on the platform for a larger building; but a little way off was a much wider piece of level ground, and here already logs were laid for a log house.
"The cottage was an after-thought," said Philip, showing the plan of the log house. "I knew that we could not get this fitted up in time, and planking being abundant and cheap, I bethought me of running up a plank cottage which will serve you till you can get into the more substantial mansion. With a stove and additional banking up outside it may be made warm enough even for winter." Never was a family more busy, or one more contented and happy.
"Our present abode will make a magnificent dairy when we get into the big mansion," cried Agnes, as she saw the walls of the log house quickly rising. "How clean and nice the pans will look arranged round the walls and the churn in the middle."
"Your notions are rather too grand, I fear, dear," said her mother. "We have only got one cow, and there will be room here for the milk of fifty."
"Ah! but the day will come when we may have fifty. That beautiful meadow by the side of the stream to the right will feed almost that number," said Agnes.
"I should be content with four or five, so that we may make our own butter and cheese, and have cream and milk in abundance," observed Fanny. "I should like to have time to attend to our garden, and poultry, and pigs; and then, remember, we are not to grow into savages, so we must have reading, and keep up our music and drawing, and then there will be all sorts of household work to attend to."
Sophy sided with Fanny, and Philip put an end to the discussion about the dairy, by telling them that he had calculated on using up the planks of the cottage for the flooring of part of the new house.
That building got on with wonderful rapidity. Day after day Mr Lawrence D'Arcy came over with his man Terry, a faithful fellow, born on his father's estate in Ireland, who had been his servant in the army for several years. Philip had, for the purpose of economising