34 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



Queer, eerie sounds were pulsing through the 

 thickets. There was an intermittent flicker of 

 fireflies, back and forth. Whippoorwills were 

 calling in the gloom, and from back in the hills 

 came the tremolo note of a little owl. There 

 had been a breeze at sunset, but it had fallen 

 away to a soft sighing. It was all mighty dif- 

 ferent from the sort of evening song a town 

 sings. There was no faintest murmur of the 

 sound of human life ; the only voice we heard 

 was the voice of the wilderness. It wasn't un- 

 friendly, but it was strange. I wondered what 

 Laura was thinking of it but I didn't want 

 to ask. 



Little Peggy dropped asleep in my arms 

 and I put her to bed in the tent. After that 

 we got to talking of to-morrow's plans and of 

 what we would do first in the morning; but the 

 talk lagged lamely and petered out. To be 

 perfectly frank, for just a minute or two I was 

 bothered. Had our plunge been too headlong? 

 Life, particularly for the women, gets a good 

 deal of its meaning from familiar things and 

 intimate contacts and established relations. 

 The friendships and loves of years are more 

 than habit, particularly with the women. For 

 a minute or two I pondered whether we had 



