HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 41 



After a year or two we discovered that it 

 wasn't nearly so bad as it looked. You ought 

 to see that same field to-day, with the straight, 

 smooth lines of the young corn ribboning 

 across it. I'm not joking. If you wanted a 

 stone to throw at a marauding pig or a stray 

 pup, you'd have to hunt around. But there's 

 no use talking; that cornfield did look rocky 

 on that first morning. 



When we got down to it, the cause of the 

 trouble wasn't hard to find. The farm had 

 been homesteaded in 1847, and since that time 

 it had led a life of vicissitudes. That's a tough 

 old word vicissitudes; but it's no tougher 

 than the facts. Once in its history, and only 

 once, it had been a pretty well-kept farm; but 

 that was fifty years ago. Since that time it 

 had suffered absolute neglect, or worse. Yes, 

 there is something worse than downright neg- 

 lect. The farming of tenants like ours is a 

 sight worse. This farm had known years and 

 years of such mishandling with crude tools and 

 still cruder understanding. 



That surface stone was an accumulation of 

 half a century. Year by year, little by little 

 it had been turned up from the subsoil. The 

 rains of year after year had washed the loose 



