A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 153 



or the whole of it. I remember him most 

 kindly, and would gladly do him a service. 

 If any reader, having a landed investment 

 in view, should desire my intervention in 

 the premises, I am freely at his command ; 

 only let him bear in mind the terms of the 

 deed : " If you own something, you know, 

 you have to stay." 



II. 



Fairmount, as has already been said, is 

 but a clearing in the forest. Instead of a 

 solitary cabin, as elsewhere, there are per- 

 haps a dozen or two of cabins and houses 

 scattered along the road, which emerges 

 from the woods at one end of the settlement, 

 and, after a mile or so in the sun, drops 

 into them again at the other end. The 

 glory of the place, and the reason of its 

 being, as I suppose, is a chalybeate spring 

 in a woody hollow before the post-office. 

 There may be a shop of some kind, also, 

 but memory retains no such impression. 

 One building, rather larger than most of 

 its neighbors, and apparently unoccupied, I 

 looked at more than once with a measure 

 of that curiosity which is everywhere the 



