78 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



is that materials and labor for our building 

 cost us all told only about $2,000. For this 

 money we had our big house, our huge barn, a 

 three-room cottage for a farm hand, a log 

 storeroom and laundry building, our poultry 

 houses, and some odds and ends of sheds and 

 shelters. We certainly got our money's worth. 

 But for our defiance of some of the traditions, 

 the cost might have been three or four times as 

 great. 



Plans for our first season of real farm work 

 went ahead through that winter with no end of 

 eagerness but with a finger always on the throt- 

 tle to check wasteful expenditure. The more 

 we studied our proposition the more clearly we 

 understood that we must go slow for a year or 

 two in building up our fields and getting them 

 fit for real farming. We had no money to 

 waste through letting our eagerness run away 

 with our prudence. 



Looking over the accounts of that first year, 

 I can't put my finger on an item of real loss. 

 Had we been experienced farmers of the old 

 school instead of book farmers of the new or- 

 der, we'd have spent our money differently, to 

 be sure; but as I see it we shouldn't have got 

 so satisfactory a return upon our outlay. It's 



