HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 123 



that's the very time when lots of folks make up 

 their minds that they've tackled too big an 

 undertaking. Success or failure is likely to be 

 settled right there. You can see how that may 

 be. Suppose you were the man in the case. 

 Suppose you had been spending a long string 

 of hot summer days in a new field, toiling at 

 unfamiliar work, coming in at night dead 

 weary and stained with earth and sweat and 

 with rows and bunches of blisters scattered 

 around over you. Suppose you weren't wise 

 enough to judge whether your year's crop 

 would amount to anything, for all this labor. 

 Suppose you sat out on the porch after supper, 

 brooding over the lonesomeness. Suppose 

 you'd forgotten to buy smoking tobacco the 

 last time you were in town. And suppose 

 just suppose that your wife had said some- 

 thing just the least bit fretful or peevish about 

 something that had gone wrong with her work. 

 It's just possible that you'd conjure up a pic- 

 ture of your old familiar town streets at night, 

 with the bright lights, and the picture shows, 

 and the tobacco shops on every other corner, 

 and all the stir and bustle and gayety you used 

 to know so well. If that keeps up, and if 

 something happens that puts a little crimp of 



