What are the motifs in Kildee House by Rutherford G. Montgomery?

Taking risks is a motif in the book. Jerome Kildee learns late in life to take risks. After a long career as a stonemason in another region of the country, Kildee decides to uproot and make a huge change in his life and move to a remote section of a mountainside deep in a redwood forest in California. He is a shy man who worked in a solitary job for many years. He comments in one passage that he has remorse because of his inability to relate to his customers.