HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 315 



if I tell you a little story it will help you to 

 understand. 



This Fayetteville country was settled years 

 and years before the railroad was built and 

 that's nearly forty years ago. A new railroad 

 has come in lately. Last summer I rode back 

 into the hills a dozen miles east of home, and 

 there I stopped at a farmhouse one day. The 

 farmer was a middle-aged man, and his father 

 who lived with him was "goin* on eighty." At 

 dinner our talk ran for a time on the new rail- 

 way and the advantages it would give us farm- 

 ers in the way of better markets for our stuff 

 and better shipping rates. It was the younger 

 man who did most of the talking. By and by 

 the old father broke in. 



"Hit's kind o' cur'us," he said, "but I ain't 

 ever seen thet first railroad yit. Hit's done 

 been thar a long while, too. I've sort o' fig- 

 gered sometimes thet I'd go in an' hev a look 

 at that darned thing, just for cur'osity; but I 

 ain't never got round to it, an' I don't expect 

 as how I ever will. What'd be the use? Hit 

 don't take a railroad to make me happy. If 

 I've ever got any time to spend in lookin', I 

 can set right here on the front porch an' look 

 across the cove at the hills. They're a heap 



