United States or Gibraltar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And by the time the masons had set firm and solid the many-coloured boulders in the foundation, the community at large had begun to take interest in the undertaking. The McLeod raising was to be an event of no ordinary importance. It had the distinction of being, in the words of Jack Murray, framer, "the biggest thing in buildin's ever seen in them parts."
As he blew out the candle in the lantern and deposited that ancient luminary on the lean-to shelf, he rubbed his hands complacently, and observed: "Well, Widow Sprigg, I cal'late I've done things up brown. Winds may blow an' waves may roar, as the poet says, but nobody nor nothing can't break into Eunice's buildin's whilst I have the care on 'em. How's he doin'?"
"Oh, shaw!" sez Josiah, "I guess that they would git along if you didn't go at all; I guess that they hain't a-sufferin' for company this year." "But," sez I with dignity, "this is a fur different thing, and as fur as our own United States Buildin's are concerned, I feel bound to 'em, bein' such a intimate friend to their Father-in-law." "What do you mean?" sez Josiah.
It had a bark to it like one o' these intellectual dolls what can say Ma-maa, Ma-maa, but the critter was as proud o' this bark as though it shook all the buildin's on the place. The blame thing wasn't physically able to inflict much more damage than a mosquito, but it was full as bloodthirsty, an' it had took a keen disregard for Bill Andrews.
So to please him, which wuz the main effort of us two chaperones, we went there. We wuz tired to death that night anyway, and wanted a quiet haven and wanted it to once, for truly when Josiah pinted out the elegant buildin's that we passed I looked coldly on 'em, and said that there wuzn't one that looked so good to me as a goose feather piller would.
There's a big spring at the head of it, where the ranch buildin's is; an' there's a clump o' timber there box elders an' cottonwoods, y' know. Now see the advantage I'll have. Other herds'll hev to traipse back an' forth from grass to water an' from water to grass, a-runnin' theirselves poor; an' all the time I'll hev livin' water right in the middle o' my range."
"I tell you, boys," he shouted, "that's a racin' fire, and it's in that Jo Quacca slash! I, for one, have got a stand of buildin's in front of that fire." He jumped down and started for the door. Several men followed him. The chairman of the town committee began to shake a paper above his head. "It's no time to be leaving a caucus," he pleaded. "We've fixed up a new call.
"I wa'n't a mite deceived by that pigpen, no more'n I was by Jed Towle's hencoop, nor Ivory Dunn's well-curb, nor Pitt Packard's shed-steps. If you hed ever kep' up your buildin's yourself, Rose's beaux would n't hev to do their courtin' with carpenters' tools." "It's the pigpen an' the hencoop you want to keep your eye on, mother, not the motives of them as made 'em.
"See the Sabbath labor it will cause, the great expenditure of strength and labor, to have all them stupendious buildin's open on the Sabbath. The onseemly and deafnin' noise and clatter of the machinery, and the toil of the men that it will take to run and take care of all the departments, and the labor of the poor men who will have to carry guests back and forth all day."
The buildin's on Ozone was all joined together first the house, then the ell, then the wash-rooms and big sheds, and, finally, the barn. There was doors connectin', and you could go from house to barn, both downstairs and up, without steppin' outside once.
Word Of The Day