40 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



"stand." On the other side of the field his 

 wife and three or four kids were replanting 

 the vacant spaces chopping little holes with 

 heavy hoes, dropping a few grains in each hole, 

 and chopping the earth back over them. It 

 was very primitive, terribly laborious. Across 

 the width of the field we could hear the clink 

 and rasp of the hoes against the stones at every 

 slow, painful stroke. It wasn't much like the 

 farming we'd been used to watching up in the 

 prairie country. It appeared as if time had 

 turned back a hundred years under our eyes. 



When we had looked on a while, Laura gave 

 a little exclamation. "Can that land ever be 

 really farmed?" she said. 



I laughed. I've found out that there's noth- 

 ing better than a laugh for disguising dismay. 

 "Oh, yes!" I said. "We'll have to get some 

 of that stone picked up first. We'll need the 

 stone, anyway, when it comes to building." 



You'll notice that I've mentioned stone sev- 

 eral times. That ground was certainly stony. 

 Exceedingly stony pile up the adverbs to suit 

 yourself; you can hardly overdo it. On some 

 of the field the soil showed through the stones 

 only in spots. Truly, it was a tough-looking 

 piece of ground. 



