Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 24.djvu/616

608 made lighter by leaving large, round windows or open circles in the parts of their vaults farthest from their points of contact, so that each of them looked not unlike the outer sphere of a Japanese ivory nest of concentric balls. You see the object was to make a moon, which, when left to its own gravity, should be fitly supported or braced within. Dear George was sure that, by this constant repetition of arches, we should with the least weight unite the greatest strength. I believe it still, and experience has proved that there is strength enough.

When I went up to No. 9, on my re- turn from South America, I found the lower centring up. and half full of the working-bees, who were really Keltic laborers, all busy in bringing up the lower half-dome of the shell. This lower centring was of wood, in form exactly like, a Roman amphitheatre if the seats of it be circular ; on this the lower or inverted brick dome was laid. The whole fabric was on one of the terraces which were heaved up in some old geological cataclysm, when some lake gave way, and the Carrotook River was born. The level was higher than that of the top of the fly-wheels, which, with an awful velocity now, were circling in their wild career in the ravine below. Three of the lowest moonlets, as I have called them, separate croquet-balls, if you take my other illustration, had been completed ; their centrings had been taken to pieces and drawn out through the holes, and were now set up again with other new centrings for the second story of cells.

I was received with wonder and de- light. I had telegraphed my arrival, but the despatches had never been for- warded from Skowhegan. Of course, we all had a deal to tell ; and, for me, there was no end to inquiries which I had to make in turn. I was never tired of exploring the various spheres, and the nameless spaces between them. I was never tired of talking with the laborers. All of us, indeed, became skilful bricklayers ; and on a pleasant afternoon you might see Alice and Bertha, and George and me, all laying brick together, Polly sitting in the shade of some wall which had been built high enough, and reading to us from Jean Ingelow or Monte-Christo or Jane Austen, while little Clara brought to us our mortar. Happily and lightly went by that summer. Haliburton and his wife made us a visit ; Ben Brannau brought up his wife and children ; Mrs. Haliburton herself put in the keystone to the central chamber, which had al- ways been named G. on the plans ; and at her suggestion, it was named Grace now, because her mother's name was Hannah. Before winter we had passed the diameter of I, J, and K, the three uppermost cells of all ; and the surrounding shell was closing in upon them. On the whole, the funds had held out amazingly well. The wages had been rather higher than we meant ; but the men had no chances at liquor or dissipation and had worked faster than we expected ; and, with our new brick-machines, we made brick incon- ceivably fast, while their quality was so good that dear George said there was never so little waste. We celebrated Thanksgiving of that year together, my family and his family. We had paid off all the laborers ; and there were left, of that busy village, only Asaph Langdon and his family, Levi Jordan and Levi Ross, Horace Leonard and Seth Whitman with theirs. " Theirs," I say, but Ross had no family. He was a nice young fellow who was there as Haliburton's representative, to take care of the accounts and the pay-roll ; Jordan was the head of the brick-kilns ; Leonard, of the carpenters ; and Whit- man, of the commissariat, and a good commissary Whitman was.

We celebrated Thanksgiving to- gether ! Ah me ! what a cheerful, pleasant time we had ; how happy the children were together ! Polly and I and our bairns were to go to Boston the next day. I was to spend the win- ter in one final effort to get twenty-five thousand dollars more if I could, with which we might paint the MOON, or put on some ground felspathic granite dust, in a sort of paste, which in its hot flight