Its buildings were mostly of adobe, with earthen roofs, so low that when one saw a rainstorm coming in the rainy season (when it rained invariably once a day), he went forth with a shovel and shingled his roof anew, standing on the ground as he did so.

There were a few cabins built of logs, but very few.

Only one or two stores had the high board front common in Western villages.

Lumber was very scarce and carpenters still scarcer.
How the family from Kansas had happened to drift into Heart's Desire--how a man of McKinney's intelligence had come to settle there--how Dan Anderson, a very good lawyer, happened to have tarried there--how indeed any of us happened to be there, are questions which may best be solved by those who have studied the West-bound, the dream-bound, the malcontents.

At any rate, here we were, and it was Christmas-time.