It's Friday.
Then Pa wiped the sweat from his forehead, he took a fresh grip on the ax, and he tackled another log. One day the last log was split, and next morning Pa began to lay the floor. He dragged the logs into the house and laid them one by one, flat side up. With his spade he scraped the ground underneath, and fitted the round side of the log firmly down into it. With his ax he trimmed away the edge of bark and cut the wood straight, so that each log fitted against the next, with hardly a crack between them. Then he took the head of the ax in his hand, and with little, careful blows he smoothed the wood. He squinted along the log to see that the surface was straight and true. He took off last little bits, here and there. Finally he ran his hand over the smoothness, and nodded. He said it was not a splinter and that would be all right for little bare feet to run over. He left that log fitted into its place, and dragged in another. When he came to the fireplace, he used shorter logs. He left a space of bare earth for a hearth, so that when sparks or coals popped out of the fire they would not burn the floor. One day the floor was done. It was smooth and firm and hard, a good floor of solid oak that would last forever. Pa said that you couldn’t beat a good puncheon floor. And Ma said she was glad to be up off the dirt. She put the little china woman on the mantel-shelf, and spread a red-checked cloth on the table. She said that now they were living like civilized folks again. After that Pa filled the cracks in the walls. He drove thin strips of wood into them, and plastered them well with mud, filling every chink. Ma said that that was a good job and that chinking would keep out the wind, no matter how hard it blew.
