Cather depicts the house as quaint and charming. She makes a point of describing the house's furnishings as handmade, granting the pieces an "irregular and intimate quality." From this, the reader may infer that Cather respects the character of such furnishings and, like many Modernist writers, prefers the traditional touches of civilization to the mass-produced items that are all identical.
Cather describes the carpentry industry of the time as relying on ax-hewing, because a lathe and sawmill are not available. This results in one-of-a-kind furnishings that evoke the care and artistry of the carpenters who built them. The reader is subtly reminded that Jesus was a carpenter by trade.
Vaillant's remembering of his gardens in Ohio prompt him to state that a missionary's life is "to plant where another shall reap." This is a foreshadowing of the gardens Vaillant and Latour will plant in the souls of their diocese. It also foreshadows that priests can plant gardens that are grandiose but corrupt, as is the case of Fray Baltazar Montoya, who enslaved his parish for the sake of his garden and fruit trees.
Although reluctant at this stage to travel beyond Santa Fe, Vaillant is portrayed as a man who will wear out guides, mules, stage drivers, and horses in the New Mexico territory.
