Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/208

 It was the passivity of stupefaction, however, as one marvel after another was revealed to them. The first evening the architect sketched the plans of a picturesque building in the old Norse style, to match the romantic scenery of the lovely valley. The next morning he located it upon a knoll cooled by a steady breeze. The contractor made hasty inquiries about lumber, labor, and houses for his men, found that none of these essentials were at hand, decided to import everything from Albany; and by noon of the day after they arrived these two brisk young gentlemen had departed, leaving Hillsboro still incredulous of its good fortune.

When they returned, ten days later, however, they brought solid and visible proof in the shape of a train-load of building materials and a crowd of Italian laborers, who established themselves in a boarding-car on a side-track near the station.

"We are going," remarked the contractor to the architect, "to make the dirt fly."

"We will make things hum," answered the architect, "as they've never hummed before in this benighted spot."

And indeed, as up to this time they had never hummed at all, it is not surprising that Hillsboro caught its breath as the work went forward like Aladdin's palace. The corner-stone was laid on the third of July and on the first of October the building stood complete. By the first of November the books had come already catalogued by the Library School and arranged in boxes so that they could be put at once upon the shelves; and the last details of the interior decoration were complete. The architect was in the most naĩve ecstasy of admiration for his own taste. The outside was deliciously unhackneyed in