HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 187 



fancy that you're afoot on one of those rough 

 paths winding up a mountainside through the 

 deep woods, without knowing where you are or 

 just where you're coming out. There's no one 

 with you to talk to ; you're plumb alone. And 

 it's dark not pitch-black, but a deep, murky 

 darkness that your eyes can get used to just 

 enough to let you make out dimly the gray, 

 ghostly line of the trail and the huge bulk of 

 the hill and the vaulted trees. There's no wind 

 stirring to make a ripple on the profound 

 quiet ; all you can hear is that pulsing, rustling 

 quiver that is more like silence than sound. 



Writers of fiction always resort to the cheap 

 trick of making a twig snap to startle a body 

 in such a case. That's pure buncombe. Twigs 

 don't snap. I haven't heard a twig snap in all 

 these years in the woods unless I stepped on it 

 myself. I've wished sometimes that one would 

 snap, just to break the melancholy lonesome- 

 ness. I'll tell you what does happen, though. 

 Right at the instant when your senses are on 

 the keen stretch and you're stumbling blindly 

 along, more than half persuaded that you've 

 lost your way, some little critter that's crouch- 

 ing beside the path a young cottontail, more 

 than likely gives a sudden hop ; and then you 



