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decided to wander around. Near an open door I saw chickens roaming 
through a room filled with tools and grain sacks. As I entered, the chickens 
flew out where a door hung on one hinge. Looking into the kitchen, I 
thought the plaster would choose that moment to fall down. A bit of ceiling 
paper hung over an old table set with cold boiled potatces and a raw onion. 
I rushed for the nearest exit, bent on getting away. I was convinced that 
my husband had gone mad to want the old house. But once outside, I paused 
to stare at an old lilac bush. It seemed to say, “I will not die, there are many 
years ahead of me yet, my roots are deep and strong and I will not die.” 
I stood beside the old bush, admiring its determination to live. The house 
was forgotten. Without realizing it, peace, contentment and happiness were 
filling my every thought. I turned around to face the house again. It stood 
there like a giant, defying me to believe that it, too, would fail to survive. 
Suddenly I recalled what I had been told. The joists were a foot thick; the 
wood work, floors, and weather boarding, solid walnut. Something drew me 
back into the old house, and as I chased the chickens out, I seemed to be 
defending its right to be something better than a chicken coop. 
I climbed the groaning stairs. Here were barren rooms, and ceilings only 
a foot above my head. Then up a step into the higher front rooms. Empty, 
but what a view over the distant fields! And then I took a fatal step toward 
a south window. I looked down and found my eyes resting again on that old 
lilac bush. At that moment I decided that my husband had not lost his mind, 
and I became a willing partner in his desire for the old house on the hill. 
My husband is much wiser than I. As a boy he had enjoyed a part of each 
summer on the hill while an uncle lived there. He was the one who had the 
vision for the future of the old house, and he knew that if I inspected it 
alone, I would love it as he had. My roots are buried so deep now in the 
country that I pray I shall still be on the Hill when I’m carried to the 
burial ground near Elizabeth and Ellington. Time marches on in my dreams! 
Trees and shrubs were planted, and the birds soon found nesting sites. 
The fence allowed only a small yard; it was set out farther, then was com- 
pletely removed as we made the hill into a wildlife sanctuary. A border line 
of shrubs and trees marks the edge of the gardens near the house. A meadow 
borders this, then a planting of thousands of evergreen trees and multiflora 
rose. This soon brought the birds and other wildlife — raccoons, possums, a 
few skunks, rabbits, pheasants, and quail. And on the farm pond, ducks and 
muskrats. To add a bit of atmosphere, we have a pair of peacocks and pet 
geese. The old house will never be lonely again. 
Appropriate signs mark a nature trail. At the entrance a weathervane 
eagle stands guard over a sign: “This Is a Wildlife Sanctuary. Look, Learn, 
Love, Leave.” 
After you walk through the gardens and nature trail, you return to the 
higher lawn and see what at first you think is a new lilac bush. No, this is 
the one Elizabeth planted, the root that refused to die! Through our gardens 
and fields you walk, pausing to read the signs or admire a blooming shrub, 
and then you are at our door. A sign welcomes you: “We are happiest when 
sharing the old house with friends.” The latch string is always out and on 
Sunday April 27th, the door will be wide open. 
The winds may be blowing, it may be cold or raining on April 27th, but 
