122 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



an exact knowledge of soil chemistry. One 

 may learn his chemistry afterward out of the 

 text-books; but love isn't to be mastered so. 

 It's all well enough to pooh-pooh sentiment, 

 to say that sentiment has no place in business, 

 and all that; but that's poor talk. I've never 

 known a man who had made a conspicuous suc- 

 cess at farming or anything else without a sen- 

 timental attachment for his job. Sentiment's 

 the thing! Honest to goodness, I'd as soon try 

 to live with a wife I didn't love as to work with 

 an acre I didn't care for. With that feeling 

 left out, farming is no more than an expedient 

 just a hard way of making a living. The 

 hardships and discouragements take on vast 

 proportions. That's been worked out before 

 our eyes here, many and many a time. 



We've seen this, too : There comes a time in 

 the farming experience of every townsman 

 when novelty wears off and some of the rough 

 facts begin to loom large. Laura says it's just 

 like the critical "second summer" in the life of 

 a baby. The enterprise is past its first in- 

 fancy; it's cutting its teeth and learning to 

 walk; it's having a lot of knocks and bumps 

 and pains. In that period it needs some care- 

 ful nursing if it's to be pulled through and 



