248 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



ashamed. I wasn't trying to serve him; I 

 guess it was just the rude instinct of self- 

 preservation that spoke. 



"Why don't you get some goats to clean up 

 your brush?" I asked. In the back of my 

 head was a dark purpose. I meant to do that 

 man dirt! 



That's as far as I got with it, though. He 

 stopped me right there with an emphatic ges- 

 ture and a loud snort. 



"Goats!" he exploded. "I've got 'em! I 

 had a big herd a while ago, and there are 

 twenty-five of 'em left. Mine are the jump- 

 less kind born with stiff knees, or something, 

 so they can't jump an inch off the ground. 

 Great! Maybe they can't jump; I don't 

 know; but they can certainly bounce, then. If 

 I had money enough, I'd like to try making 

 a pen of some kind that would hold them in 

 or out. Either way. Goats! And jump- 

 less goats! Why, I've seen mine up with the 

 buzzards in the treetops." 



That brought on more talk. We talked 

 about the discouragements not in a discour- 

 aged way, but trying to figure them out. 



"Sometimes I'm tempted to quit," my friend 

 said, "or else to compromise and try to be sat- 



