The O.F.F. were to present the afterconcert, and Fat was busy on the program.  The fall gymnasium was being entered into with great zest, and already there had been a call for basket ball.  The Bible study groups were getting together for the winter, the new Cabinet had been elected, so that, someway, there was not a great deal of time left for the cabin.

Mr. Allen and a few picked fellows had made a trip the week before, primarily to take up a supply of food for the mason and his helper, and had gotten the entire frame of the addition up, ready to roof and shingle.

The next week another small group went up to roof the addition and close it in so as to keep out the snow, if, perchance, it might come before they were able to finish the improvements.  They found the fireplace completed, crude but artistic, of jagged boulders with an immense cement hearth.  The iron crane had been built in, and now hung lazily in the big fire-box.

Next came the cutting of the aspen poles for the floor of the addition.  They had hoped to get at least one layer of boughs on the great bed so that the next time a larger crowd could be accommodated, but the long autumn shadows warned them that twilight was approaching long before they started it, so consequently they had to go back without seeing that task accomplished.  The curtains had been put on the windows, white oilcloth had been tacked on the board tables, and a mirror, if you please, was hung over the tin wash basin just inside the door.  Hooks made of crooked branches were fastened upon the logs on which to hang coats and haversacks.  The place had really undergone a genuine transformation.

“Well,” said Ham, as he took a long drink from the bucket of fresh water that stood on the kitchen table, “that’s the best water that ever flowed down a mountain side.  There’s life and health in every shining drop of it.  To tell you the real truth, fellows, I’m beginning to feel mightily at home here in this little shack.  Shack! that doesn’t sound right, though, does it?  What are we going to call this place, anyway, Mr. Allen?  Y.M.C.A.  Cabin is no good.  It sounds too civilized.  Now, does that old fireplace look civilized?  And that iron crane, and those twisted rustic seats in the corner, and that bed out there big enough to accommodate twenty fellows?  It reminds me of a home the old Vikings must have had long ago, way up in the great pine woods of Northern Europe.  Someway, it has a look of health and strength about it that I like.  Don’t you see the smile on that old fire-box?  Can’t you hear the happy peasant children gathered there on that hearth singing their woodland songs and drinking their mugs of warm soup?  Then, over yonder, all stretched out, his head to the fire, lies a great, gaunt dog, tired from the chase.  Then the tap, tap on the wooden floor of the old woman’s cane as she hobbles about the cabin.  Can’t you smell the bear haunch that’s roasting there on that long spit before the fire?  Don’t you hear the merry music of the ax, just outside the door, as brawny arms swing it, cutting the great backlog for the long night?  Civilized?  Yes, in a way, but not in our way, is it?  But what are we going to call this cabin?”