26 MY FARM. 



I explained as I could, teutonically. 



" Dam ! der vater view ! (with emphasis) ; dis ish 

 it ; der pond, ish it no vater ? hein ! dam (puff)." 



Even now I look back with a good deal of sel f- 

 applause upon my success in extricating myself from 

 the merciless and magnetic earnestness of the red- 

 bearded Mr. Van Heine ; I think of my escape from 

 the dusty high-road, the angular joinery of the house, 

 the bloated hills, blotched with junipers, the strag- 

 gling trunks of the drowned trees, and the imper- 

 turbable insistance of the German, with his expletive 

 dam and his black-stemmed porcelain pipe, as I think 

 of escapes from some threatening pestilence. 



Another country place was brought to my atten- 

 tion, under circumstances that forbade any doubt of 

 its positive attractions. There was wood in abun- 

 dance, dotted here and there with a profuse and care- 

 less luxuriance ; there were rounded banks of hills, 

 and meadows through which an ample stream came 

 flowing with a queenly sweep, and with a sheen that 

 caught every noontide, and repeated it in a glorious 

 blazon of gold. It skirted the hills, it skirted the 

 wood, and came with a gushing fulness upon the 

 very margin of the quiet little houseyard that com- 

 passed the dwelling. And from the door, underneath 

 cherry trees, one could catch glimpses of the great 



