WIIEUE I LIVED. 
89 
Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, 
for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I 
could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, 
and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of 
this region, wherever they may place their houses, may 
be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon 
sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, woodlot, and 
pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be 
left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted 
tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let 
it lie, fallow perchance, for a man is rich in proportion 
to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. 
My imagination carried me so far that I even had 
the refusal of several farms,—The refusal was all I 
wanted, — but I never got my fingers burned by actual 
possession. The nearest that I came to actual posses¬ 
sion was when I bought the Hollo well place, and had 
begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with 
which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; 
but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife — 
every man has such a wife — changed her mind and 
wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to re¬ 
lease him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten 
cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to 
tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a 
farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let 
him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had 
carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold 
him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was 
not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and 
still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for 
a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a 
rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I 
