66 THE COW 



worthy old houses are thronged with ghosts — 

 ghosts of happy bridals when a young man and a 

 woman stand, with clasped hands and their eyes 

 solemn with love and the wonder and the mystery 

 of it all. There are ghosts of infants haunting 

 dim upper chambers with memories of hush and 

 expectation and then of joy because a child is bom 

 into the world. Then there are other and more 

 somber ghosts telling of how the master of the 

 farm full of days and honor was ready to leave 

 the home, and how the masters of neighboring 

 farms have come in with solemn manner and 

 carried him first to the old church and then to the 

 burial place to mingle his own with the family 

 dust. 



Old farms gather to themselves what only the 

 years can purchase — ^traditions. There are tradi- 

 tions of disaster or of success, stories of the lean 

 years when hail swept the farm in July or when 

 the corn frosted in August — tales of the fat years 

 when the wheat at harvest (as once in many years 

 it did) stood so thick and strong that on the great 

 billow of bowing heads the men laid the cradle 

 and it did not fall to the ground. Many are the 

 stories such as these which cluster around old 

 farms. 



Perhaps if there is any object which represents 

 the very essence of farm sentiment, it is old stone 

 walls. There is plenty of utility but very little 

 sentiment in barbed wire. You cannot sit on a 



