every spring. Each stubborn log that he encountered gave him new courage and
power of overcoming. The rush of the water, the noise and roar and dash, the
exposure and danger, all made the blood run in his veins like new wine. When
he came back to the farm, all the cobwebs had been blown from his brain, and
his first interview with Rose was so intoxicating that he went immediately to
Portland, and bought, in a kind of secret penitence for his former fears, a
pale pink-flowered wall-paper for the bedroom in the new home. It had once
been voted down by the entire advisory committee. Mrs. Wiley said that pink
was foolish and was always sure to fade; and the border, being a mass of solid
roses, was five cents a yard, virtually a prohibitive price. Mr. Wiley said he
"should hate to hev a spell of sickness an' lay abed in a room where there was
things growin' all over the place." He thought "rough-plastered walls, where
you could lay an' count the spots where the roof leaked, was the most
entertainin' in sickness." Rose had longed for the lovely pattern, but had
sided dutifully with the prudent majority, so that it was with a feeling of
unauthorized and illegitimate joy that Stephen papered the room at night, a
few strips at a time.

On the third evening, when he had removed all signs of his work, he lighted
two kerosene lamps and two candles, finding the effect, under this
illumination, almost too brilliant and beautiful for belief. Rose should never
see it now, he determined, until the furniture was in place. They had already
chosen the kitchen and bedroom things, though they would not be needed for
some months; but the rest was to wait until summer, when there would be the
hay-money to spend.

Stephen did not go back to the River Farm till one o'clock that night; the
pink bedroom held him in fetters too powerful to break. It looked like the
garden of Eden, he thought. To be sure, it was only fifteen feet square; Eden
might have been a little larger, possibly, but otherwise the pink bedroom had