26 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



brook ran clear and free and cold. A little 

 way up the bank we found a deep flowing 

 spring, walled in in some old day, and brim- 

 ming full. The ground was smothered in a 

 very riot of spring bloom. Away up in the 

 very tip-top of a sycamore, straight over our 

 heads, a mocking-bird began singing, fit to split 

 his little throat. I looked at Laura, and Laura 

 looked at me; a smile passed between us 

 and it was all over! 



Oh, I know what you're thinking: "That's 

 no way to buy a farm." Well, don't I know it? 

 But this wasn't a farm. It had been a farm 

 once, long ago, and it would be a farm again 

 by and by; but just then it was simply acres 

 and acres of raw, untamed beauty, inviting us. 



We walked around a little. The place lay 

 in the form of an L eighty acres across the 

 south front, with forty acres of woodland on a 

 hill at the back. There were three brooks wan- 

 dering through the land. We stood at the 

 edge of the woods and let our eyes follow their 

 courses. Wherever we looked, Possibility was 

 written large. 



"There's wood enough right here," I said, 

 "to run our big fireplace for a thousand years !" 



The agent's circular had spoken solemn truth 



