114 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



keep free of them altogether. We could have 

 that freedom on the farm. People who would 

 travel to Happy Hollow over that crazy coun- 

 try road would do it because they really wanted 

 to see us; and we would think twice before 

 we'd go bumping into town on a useless er- 

 rand. That's the way the matter sifted itself 

 out in my head. 



I wasn't so sure of Laura's feeling, for we 

 had never thrashed it out together in plain 

 words. We had had a year and a half on the 

 farm before we got to that point. Then one 

 morning the chance came. 



It was a gorgeous morning in December; 

 the sort of winter morning that comes to us 

 here in the Ozarks often and often, crisp and 

 tonic but without a trace of the raw cold of 

 the North. Sunrise acted itself out for us in 

 crimson and gold finery as we stood together 

 at our kitchen door, looking off across the hills. 

 A broad, curling ribbon of white fog lay over 

 the river, shrouding the valley, with great tree- 

 tops stabbing through here and there. The 

 sun touched the fog warmly; it lifted and 

 drifted softly up the long hill-slopes to the 

 southward, hung for a little time from the 

 peaks in rose-tinted plumes, then soared into 



