24 MY FARM. 



Van Heine was only too happy : across the way- 

 only at a distance of a few rods, not removed from 

 the dust of the high-road, was the mill, and the " body 

 of water." The new scars in the hillsides, from 

 which the earth had been taken to dam the brook, 

 were odiously apparent: but the investment had 

 clearly not proven a profitable one : the capacity of 

 the brook had been measured at its winter stage; 

 even now, the millpond at its upper end showed a 

 broad, slimy flat, which was alive with frogs and 

 mudpouts. A few scattered clumps of dead and 

 seared alders broke the level, and a dozen or more of 

 tall and limbless trees that had been drowned by the 

 new lake, rose stragglingly from the water making, 

 with the dead bushes, and the loneliness of the place, 

 a skeleton and ghostly assemblage. 



Mr. Yan Heine had newly filled his pipe, and was 

 puffing amiably, as I stood looking at the property, 

 and at the sandy hills which rolled up from the fur- 

 ther side of the pond, tufted with here and there a 

 spreading juniper. The whole aspect of the property 

 was so curiously and amazingly repugnant to all the 

 rural fancies I had ever entertained, whether esthetic, 

 or purely agricultural, that I was excessively interest- 

 ed. My red-bearded entertainer clearly saw as much, 

 and with violent and persuasive puffs at his porcelain 

 pipe, and occasional iterative " dams " in his talk, 



