HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 13 



have to do any blind groping toward our re- 

 ality. We knew from the very beginning what 

 it must be. 



A beautiful setting, somewhere, with hills 

 and woods and clear water and far vistas 

 that's what we must find. We had never seen 

 that spot; but we had faith. It must exist. 

 There our house would stand, nestled safe in 

 the heart of soft delights. 



And such a house! For eighteen years it 

 grew in our minds, taking form slowly, slowly. 

 A wide-spreading roof of beautiful lines ; and 

 beneath the roof wide, generous spaces. There 

 must be nothing cramped. Our idea expressed 

 itself in spaciousness, not in luxury. We must 

 have lots of room. The living center of the 

 whole thing would be a great, massive fireplace 

 of stone, wide, deep-throated, fit to hold a 

 roaring winter fire of huge logs of oak and 

 hickory. Do you remember that Christmas 

 scene in Pickwick Papers, with the jovial old 

 Wardle and his friends gathered about the 

 blaze? In our first years together Laura and 

 I read that story. After that, do you fancy 

 you could have induced us to plan for steam 

 radiators or a furnace in the basement? Right 

 from that minute that fireplace was ours. 



