HAPPY :^IOLLOW FARM 233 



year." There's the easy formula that halts 

 many a farmer at his work in mid-year, just 

 at the point where profit-making might begin. 

 It's the rule rather than the exception down 

 here to consider that the working season on the 

 land is done when corn is "laid by." Then 

 comes a gap of months when the farmer fills 

 in with occasional odd jobs for somebody else. 

 That's habit rather than necessity. It's a bad 

 habit, for it almost inevitably means loss. The 

 farmer simply bets that he's going to lose, and 

 then sets about winning his own bet. 



We've found a thousand chances at Happy 

 Hollow for betting against ourselves in just 

 that way. We've taken some of them to our 

 cost. It's not easy to keep an eye on all the 

 odds and ends on a hundred and twenty acres 

 and have everything done on time. Once we 

 killed a horse by turning him into a newly 

 fenced pasture where there was a loose strand 

 of old wire lying on the ground in a brush- 

 grown corner. We were crowded for time! 

 we thought we could safely put off that last de- 

 tail of inspection for a day or so. We took a 

 chance that cost us a hundred dollars. 



We took a chance, two winters ago, in clear- 

 ing up a lot of new ground. The time was 



