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Slowly, the sides of the cabin began to rise now that their floor was laid. Whatever the name of the stone that Barbara thought was sandstone, it didn’t work as she had intended. They’d had to buy sandpaper to get the floors smooth, so bare feet could someday walk on them. They’d seal the floors when they finished the cabin but not for a while with all the trekking they were doing across it as they built their cabin.
Barbara continued to fell dead trees, most only suitable for firewood, but cleaning up the forest around their chosen home, and Marion was collecting stones. She was having to go farther afield as they had already collected so many in their immediate vicinity for the basement and foundation. Now, she was planning a fireplace for the cabin and didn’t want it anywhere near the wood floor they had worked so hard to construct. After making a frame, she started to build the fireplace one stone at a time, from the ground up, in the middle of what would become the cabin. She’d stopped to help Barbara bring more trees up the slope. The combination of sheer hard work and block and tackle allowing them to bring these heavy sections to their work area to be split. They were now able to use the trees whole since their thickness would keep the bedroom areas warm. They used mortar in between the trees. Marion was proud of its neatness and her ability to get ready for the next level that Barbara would cut or split.
“What are you doing?” Marion practically screeched at Brian and Richard when she caught them picking at the mudding between the cracks of the logs. She had put it in so carefully, making sure no air bubbles or holes existed, and here they were, pulling at it.
“We’re neatening it,” Brian answered, looking abashed as he lied.
“You don’t touch that, ever! That mortar is going to be the difference between you keeping warm or freezing to death in your bedroom all winter!” She knew he was lying. He’d turned a bright shade of red and had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Marion. Could I mix some more for you?” Richard offered helpfully.
Her eyes squinted at him, sure that he would find that more of a privilege than a punishment. “Do you two have your homework ready to be mailed tomorrow when we go into Franklin?” she asked instead.
“I’m done,” Brian responded quickly...almost too quickly. Marion stared at him until he began to fidget. “Well, I’m almost done,” he admitted.
“You go wash up and get that homework done.” She glanced at Brenda, who was playing with the kittens. The many minor scratches on the child’s arms made it look like she was hatching something. “Brenda, did you do the homework we set for you?” she asked the little girl to distract her from the growing kittens.
“Yes, Mom. I got all the letters in order, and I even colored them,” she said proudly.
“Get your homework and show me, if you would?” she answered, not trusting their answers as she worked to place the fireplace rocks just so. The braces she was using kept things straight, but she wanted the concrete to dry and make it solid.
The children were a constant distraction for both mothers. Barbara continued to cut trees down. She’d wait until she had several before getting the children to ‘help’ her cut off the branches. She would leave just enough for them to feel they were helping and keep them out of Marion’s hair for a few hours. Marion took them with her to the beach to pull apart the many pallets, beachcomb, and to fish, so she could watch them as she worked and keep them far away from the trees that Barbara was felling.
“Brenda, get Gray out of that bucket. He’s stealing the fish your brother just caught!” she called, seeing the sneaky gray kitten pulling at the tail with his baby claws, trying to cage a free meal. She knew the kittens had tried to catch mice but wasn’t certain if they’d been successful yet. Tiger was sitting patiently, waiting for his brother to get the fish, who flopped enticingly, ripping his tail out of the kitten’s grasp time and again.
Another time, Marion couldn’t wait to share with Barbara that Tiger had had a chipmunk turn the tables on his hunt and climb on his back. He couldn’t turn fast enough to try and get the rodent off his back, and the animal hung on like a rodeo rider as the cat twisted and fishtailed. Marion laughed so hard at the sight, and she wished she’d had a camera. She cried in laughter as she played the scene over and over in her mind. The chipmunk, more scared of the human, took off safely and got away from the young hunter.
“You know, they say laughter is the best medicine,” Barbara commented with a smile as she listened to the story later after supper. Marion hadn’t dare tell it during dinner as they might have choked on their fried fish and beans dinner.
Marion was raising the chimney high enough that it required her to step up on a makeshift platform to reach the top. She had braces inside to make the chimney straight, and more braces on the outside, so it was nearly flat as she continued to build it up marginally narrower on each level.
“I’d say stop for now until we get the second level up,” Barbara suggested as the sides were all about five feet high. The next log would make it six, and they wanted to go to at least seven or eight, depending on the logs she split.
“You were planning on a second level?” Marion suddenly worried.
“Well, a loft above the bedrooms for storage at least?”
They discussed it, and while it would be a lot more work, they agreed this would provide them with space they hadn’t planned for, and it would be small and convenient too. Still, they had to worry about the joists that would make the slant of their roof, and they planned on using tarpaper and flat boards over the top. They’d accumulated a few of them from the longer pallets and some they’d saved from beachcombing.
“We have to get the garden dug up,” Marion mentioned one night as they relaxed before the fire. It hadn’t rained all week, and it was getting warmer. She’d removed her layers of clothes earlier each day that week. Seeing Barbara’s muscles beneath her flannel shirt, Marion hungered to touch them. The workout each of them was getting from the heavy lifting they were doing had them both in the best shape of their lives.
“We also have to get that block and tackle in line, so we can get the logs up higher on the walls,” Barbara lamented, her back aching from using it too much. Still, she was young and didn’t think it would hurt forever.
“What about the dock we want to make in the cove?”
“Well, I thought we were planning on using some of the shorter pieces of wood from the pallets for that?”
“That doesn’t solve the pilings we need to sink?
“I have a few stumps left over from cutting trees that I think would work wonderfully. If we wait to dig until the tide is out and cast them in cement, I think they may dry before the tide comes back in?” Barbara put the idea out there, and it was obvious she had thought about that a lot while she worked. She was rubbing lotion into her hands that were perpetually chapped from the sawing, chopping, and hauling of wood she was doing. The gloves could only cover up so much.
“No matter how much we do,” she nodded towards the cabin, which was really taking shape at the other end of the meadow, “it seems we always have more to do.”
“True, but we’re learning too, and that’s important.”
“That last batch of pallets was very fine stuff. I separated out the wood this time,” Marion mentioned. “It would be good enough for porches for the summer rentals.”
“I think I know where I want to put that first rental cabin, now that we’ve been here a while.”
“When you are done with the fireplace and we get the logs up around it for the loft, maybe we should work on the dock or the garden?”
“I’ll dig up the garden a bit...maybe we can get the dogs to help?” She looked at the puppy, who seemed to find the missing rock holes in the meadow intriguing. The smell had him digging happily as he stuck his nose into the hole and then went wild digging it up more.
They laughed at the weird menagerie they were accumulating.