HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 139 



into the thicket and sit down ; if we sent a cou- 

 ple into the woods with axes and crosscut saw, 

 they'd sit madly all day long. A neighbor of 

 ours, a newcomer, put the matter pretty well 

 into words when he said that the prevalent 

 disease here in the hills seemed to be the sitting 

 sickness. 



We had trouble, too, with the newly cleared 

 ground. Did you ever try to keep a ten-acre 

 field "sprouted down" after you've hacked off 

 a thick growth of sassafras and black-jack and 

 post-oak and sumac and red elm? Well, you 

 ought to try it. I've heard prairie farmers 

 complain of the great hardship of making a 

 crop on virgin sod; but that's just old cheese 

 in comparison with cropping in a mess of green 

 roots and grubs and sprouts. 



Talk about your hydra-headed monsters ! A 

 common little old sassafras bush has any hydra 

 in the zoo backed clear off the boards at that 

 game ; and as for a spreading-rooted red elm or 

 a thicket of sumac oh, hush! Listen: You 

 take your heavy hoe and go out on a warm day 

 in spring, just when the blood of the earth has 

 got well into circulation and the sprouts are 

 booming, and you chop and chop and chop 

 your way across the length of the field, leaving 



