HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 181 



I'm very, very fond of them. But how do you 

 get them, away out here?" 



Laura pointed to the garden that lay just 

 outside the dining-room window. "We merely 

 go out and pick them," she said. 



"Not not here?" he questioned. "You 

 don't mean to say that you grow them your- 

 selves!" 



Nothing would do but that he must leave the 

 table, right in the middle of dinner, and go out 

 to the garden to take a look at those peppers 

 growing. It wasn't "put on," either; he was 

 genuinely interested as he knelt to study the 

 luxuriant plants laden with their waxy-green 

 pods. 



"It's ridiculous!" he said. "Why, I've al- 

 ways thought the pepper something exotic 

 tropical I don't know. I pay enough for one 

 when I have it on my hotel table at home. And 

 to think you can have all you want, grown right 

 here beside your house! But it isn't done 

 much, is it?" He was quite a little "bashed" 

 by the discovery. His mind kept coming back 

 to it again and again. After dinner, while we 

 smoked, he spoke without the embarrassment 

 he had shown at first. 



"I ought to have known better, of course, in 



