HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 125 



There's a rule that will work. None otjier 

 will that we know anything about. 



Mark: Though you're likely to take that 

 for a foolish theory, it isn't any such thing. It 

 isn't a theory at all; it's nothing but a plain 

 summing up of what we've seen going on 

 around us in the last four years. I can't state 

 that too emphatically. 



Anyway, we got some fine new neighbors 

 that year, and many of them have stuck. 

 They're still coming in; and slowly, year by 

 year, we're changing the face of the land. 

 Happy Hollow is no longer a hidden nook in a 

 shaggy wilderness. The country is beginning 

 to look like something. The work doesn't go 

 swiftly. There have been no lightning-flashes 

 of accomplishment. A bit at a time we're 

 building up a fine, strong, happy community. 



There's a wide lawn spreading around our 

 farmhouse about three acres in smooth sward 

 and three or four more in park formed by 

 young trees that were saved from the first 

 clearing oak, elm, hackberry, hickory, per- 

 simmon, wild cherry, black haw, walnut, locust. 

 Specimens were left of every native tree we 

 found in our jungle ; and here and there stands 

 a close group of saplings bound together in 



