84 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



pay a week would keep them in cornmeal and 

 salt meat ; so three days' work a week was about 

 all I got out of the best of them until Sam 

 came along, by and by. 



Sam didn't belong in this part of the coun- 

 try. He just "blew in" from the hills of South- 

 ern Missouri, where farming conditions are 

 pretty much like the conditions of the Fay- 

 etteville section. He was used to rough land, 

 used to stone and timber, and used to handling 

 the tools that would bring order out of such 

 chaos as our farm was in. He wasn't of native 

 stock; he was an Irishman with a fine set of 

 arms and legs and shoulders a big six-footer 

 with a back of oak, an ineradicable grin, and a 

 fairly unhuman passion for work. He's been 

 with me a little more than five years now. 

 My hat's off to him. He's been a sort of god- 

 father to Happy Hollow. 



With Sam's coming, the problem of our 

 stony fields was solved. Sam looked at them, 

 and grinned ; he listened to my talk about what 

 I wanted to do with them, and grinned; and 

 then he went to work, grinning. While he 

 worked, he, too, did some talking. I liked the 

 temper of his talk. He wasn't figuring on lazy 

 makeshifts ; he wasn't arguing that all this ex- 



