HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 47 



and a few odds and ends like that. Have you 

 any idea what it's going to cost?" 



She wasn't talking like that just to show a 

 mean disposition. Practical people have to 

 talk so, every once in a while, to keep from 

 seeming too much like other people. 



I hadn't the least notion as to what it might 

 cost. "Never mind," I said. "We'll start to 

 figuring around on that, so soon as we get set- 

 tled." 



There the proposition stood for three 

 months. I don't mean to say that we didn't 

 do some thinking in that time. We thought 

 and schemed and planned, and gathered data, 

 and discussed ways and means every day and 

 every hour; but at the end of the three months 

 we were apparently not a step nearer to a final 

 settlement of the matter than on the day we 

 took possession of the place. What do you 

 think about that? If you happen to be a cau- 

 tious, conservative business man, instead of one 

 who has spent most of his life writing fiction 

 and making things come out right on paper 

 for the people in his stories, I dare say it strikes 

 you as utterly ridiculous. But if you were on 

 the place to-day and could see how it has 

 worked out, just exactly according to that 



