74 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



kindled that first fire on that Christmas eve, 

 watching the little golden flames leap into life 

 and flicker and crackle and rise at last, roaring 

 up the chimney. It was the lighting of our 

 altar fire. We loved it. 



After that, when little Peggy had been 

 tucked in bed, my boy and I brought in her 

 Christmas tree and set it up a shapely cedar 

 we had found near the house. Its slender point 

 stretched up to brush the rafters of the high 

 arched roof. We hung it thick with tinsel 

 strings, and silver and gold stars, and gay 

 cornucopias, and pink-sugared homemade 

 cookies, and all manner of little gifts. When 

 that was done, we sat before our fire and were 

 content. 



The house was an accomplished fact. It was 

 the desire of a lifetime realized. It seemed to 

 have been wrought as by a sort of magic. In 

 two months from the time the builders began 

 their work, the walls had risen and the roof had 

 covered them. There had been not a hair's 

 breadth of change from our plans no com- 

 promise for depressing economy's sake. Back 

 of the house, at the foot of our knoll, stood a 

 huge barn, sheltering our farm horses and our 

 half dozen cows ; and the chickens and the pigs 



