HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 25 



then, like a wise man, he sat waiting. I think 

 he had his doubts. We found out afterward 

 that this farm of ours had been for years a 

 standing joke to the real estate folk of Fay- 

 etteville. Nobody wanted it its owner least 

 of all. That's how it happened to be waiting 

 for us. We had no doubts. That farm was 

 ours! 



What we saw was a rough, untidy expanse, 

 a half mile across, stretching from point to 

 point of a deep crescent of low wooded hills 

 that opened toward the south. Here and there, 

 at broken intervals, lay a tiny irregular patch 

 of ground under plow; and in between these 

 were deep, tangled thickets of wild growths, 

 dense as a jungle. In the depths of this wil- 

 derness, somewhere near us, we could hear a 

 brook making sport in a stony bed. Along 

 the banks towered giant sycamores and feath- 

 ery-limbed elms and stately walnuts. Count- 

 less plumed heads of dogwood bloom were 

 thrust out of the greenery, and we caught the 

 odor of hawthorn and honey locust. 



"Come!" Laura said; and we got out of the 

 carriage and walked down into the heart of 

 the wild hollow, pushing the tangle aside that 

 we might get close to the water's edge. The 



