A cellar was to be excavated, the timber for the frame of the new house was to be cut and hewed, and the lumber was to be purchased and drawn to the river.
Before the ground should freeze, they determined to complete the cellar, which was to be made small--to be, indeed, little more than a cave beneath the house, that would accommodate such stores as it would be necessary to shield from the frost.

A fortnight of steady work, by both the men, not only completed the excavation, but built the wall.
Then came the selection of timber for the frame.

It was all found near the spot, and for many days the sound of two axes was heard through the great stillness of the Indian summer; for at this time nature, as well as Jim, was in a dream.

Nuts were falling from the hickory-trees, and squirrels were leaping along the ground, picking up the stores on which they were to subsist during the long winter that lay before them.

The robins had gone away southward, and the voice of the thrushes was still.
A soft haze steeped the wilderness in its tender hue--a hue that carried with it the fragrance of burning leaves.