82 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



old rail fences yawed and zigzagged drunk- 

 enly back and forth. We tore out all the 

 fences at the beginning of our work, to 

 straighten their lines; and we changed from 

 rails to woven wire in rebuilding. It was a 

 rough, heavy task, that first one. Between 

 whiles, for variety, we hauled stone. 



Hundreds and hundreds of wagonloads of 

 stone went off those fields in their first clean- 

 ing. Just for the fun of it, I'd like to know 

 how many tons of stone we strained and 

 grunted over in the course of those months. 

 I felt as if it must be running well up into the 

 millions. It was the first time in my life that 

 I'd pitted myself against a job that called for 

 sheer brute strength and that seemed to have 

 no end. Week after week I couldn't see that 

 we were making any headway at all; I was 

 almost ready to believe that stone breeds and 

 multiplies by some uncanny process. We 

 strained and grunted and hauled, and still there 

 was stone. It didn't strike me so just then, 

 but that was mighty good discipline. It begat 

 patience, and it begat thoroughness. Once 

 we'd started on the job, we doggedly wouldn't 

 quit till it was finished. 



The hardest part of it all was in finding help. 



