56 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



and sevens, only knew of the help that awaits 

 them at the great schools of farming, there 

 would be another story to tell of husbandry. 

 Little by little, during that summer, our prob- 

 lem 'was simplified and the rough draft of a 

 definite plan was made. The tangled mess of 

 fractions we started with was reduced to its 

 simplest terms ; the rather vague confusion of 

 enthusiasms and questionings and uncertain- 

 ties we had at the beginning was boiled down 

 to a concrete idea. 



When we talked with one of the professors, 

 I asked a question that had been lingering in 

 the back of my head since our first encounter 

 with our tenant and since we had first watched 

 him at his work: 



"The man who's working that farm now says 

 we're bound to starve to death if we depend 

 upon farming it for a living. He looks pretty 

 lean himself. We've never tried it; but we 

 know that starvation would have its drawbacks. 

 What about that? Is there a fighting chance 

 of making a farm like that support a family 

 decently?" 



He met the question gravely, as if that 

 proposition had long since lost any suggestion 

 of humor for him. 



