26 MY FARM. 



I explained as I could, teutonically. 



&quot; Dam ! der vater view ! (with emphasis) ; dis ish 

 it ; der pond, ish it no vater ? hem ! dam (puff).&quot; 



Even now I look back with a good deal of self- 

 applause upon my success in extricating myself from 

 the merciless and magnetic earnestness of the red- 

 bearded Mr. Van Heine ; I think o/ my escape from 

 the dusty high-road, the angular joinery of the house, 

 the bloated hills, blotched with junipers, the strag 

 gling trunks of the drowned trees, and the imper 

 turbable insistance of the German, with his expletive 

 dam and his black-stemmed porcelain pipe, as I think 

 of escapes from some threatening pestilence. 



Another country place was brought to my atten 

 tion, under circumstances that forbade any doubt of 

 its positive attractions. There was wood in abun 

 dance, dotted here and there with a profuse and care 

 less luxuriance ; there were rounded banks of hills, 

 and meadows through which an ample stream came 

 flowing with a queenly sweep, and with a sheen that 

 caught every noontide, and repeated it in a glorious 

 blazon of gold. It skirted the hills, it skirted the 

 wood, and came with a gushing fulness upon the 

 very margin of the quiet little houseyard that com- 

 passed the dwelling. And from the door, underneath 

 cherry trees, one could catch glimpses of the great 



