The Abandoned Farmers

to our lives later. Through the springtime we had more water than we could possibly hope to use, and w

underbrush, stretching from the broken fences along the highroad straight back to the dooryard of the moldering tumbledown dwelling. With a gang of men under a competent foreman, and a double team of hired horses, we assaulted that tangle,

hion the job of opening up those thickets of ours to the sunlight that had not visited them for ever so long. Off of one segment of our property, a slope directly behind th

witchy saplings, were by main force snatched out of the ground bodily. A number of long-dead chestnuts and hickories, great unsightly sn

grass, and when the grass had sprouted as promptly as it did, there stood forth a dimpling green expanse where before had been a damp, moldy and almost impenetrable ta

apple trees and a whole grove of cherry trees that we hadn't known were there at all, so thoroughly had t

nto the foundations, hit her a hard wallop in the ribs, and then run for their lives. From the wreckage we reclaimed, out of the cellar, which was pre-Revolutionary, some hand-he

lary-eyed, roach-backed, mangy cats that resided under the broken flooring. In all there were fourteen of these cats-swift and rangy performers, all of them. One and all,

met a sudden end-I am a very good wing shot on cats-the survivors saw their way clear to departing entirely from the vicinity. Within a week thereafter the song birds, which until then had been strangely scarce upo

a Baltimore oriole; a bluebird; an indigo bunting; a chat; and a flicker-called, where I came from, a yellow hammer. Robins were probing for worms in the rank grass; two brown thrashers and a b

of twelve years, had been hived up in a flat, with Englis

erly persons who are to be found in nearly every rural community-a genius who was part carpenter, part mason, part painter, part glazier and part plasterer-was called into consultation, and he dec

rickets, the roof of baldness, and the inside woodwork of tetter; and he so wrought with hammer and saw and nails, with lime and cement, with paintbrush and putty knife, that presently what had been a most disreput

woeful state of nonrepair, its frame, having been built sixty or seventy years ago of splendid big timbers, stood straight and unskewed. Thanks to the ability of our architect to dream an arti

ere built in. Above were the housekeeping quarters-three bedrooms; two baths; a big living hall, with a wide-mouthed fireplace in it; a kitchen, and a pantry. This

rmit the construction of a roomy attic, with accommodations fo

on in an irregular splotchy pattern of buff and yellow and black squares; and finally, upon the front, at the level of the second floor, the builder hun

bank, six miles away, the rumpled blue outlines of the Ramapo Hills bulk up against the sky line; and bac

the studs and joists and beams had been reclaimed from the demolished main building. The chief extravagances had b

we quit swimming. All of a sudden we woke up to find t

was thin turned from a luscious green to a parched brown; and the mother spring of our seven up the valley, which had gushed so plenteously, now diminished overnight, as it were, into a puny runlet. There were no indications that the spri

onferred with friends who had built houses of their own, and who gave us their ideas of the things which would be absolutely indispensable to our comfort and happiness in our new house. We had incorporated these ideas with a few of our own, and then we had found that if we meant to construct a house which would please all concerned,

to build about from place to place. We put imaginary wheels under that imaginary home of ours and kept it traveling all over the farm. The trouble with us was we had too much latitude. With half an acre of land at our disposal, we should have been circumscribed by boundary lines. On half

d then, figuratively speaking, we would pick up the establishment and transport it to one of the newly discovered spots, and wheel it round to face in a different direction from t

asure from penetrating to our mountain fastness, either afoot or otherwise. When we heard an engine in difficulties coughing down under the hill, followed by the sound of a tire blowing out, or by the smell of rubber sco

ssible that he meant to use any native material-at that price. It turned out, though, that his bid was fairly moderate-as processed blue-stone roads go in this climate; and ours has cost us only about ei

tters, too, if I were as comfortably fixed, say, as Mr. Charles Schwab, and felt sure that I could get some of the Vanderbilt boy

when you wanted water, you merely turned a faucet. To us water had always been a matter of course. But now the situation was different. With each s

, meantime muttering strange incantations. When he came to a spot where water lay close to the surface the other end of his divining rod would dip magically toward the earth. You dug there, and if you struck water the magician took the credit for it; and if you didn't strike water it was a sign t

rkwater railroad down South is about estimating the probable time of arrival of the next passenger train-always conceding that there is to be any next train; and that is as chary as any human be

happy party who was footing the bills. Or the same prospector might dig his estate so full of circular holes that it would resemble honeycomb tripe, and never get anything except monthly statements for the work to date. On the other hand, a

nteed to make a hole in the ground of suitable caliber for an artesian well, but Nature and Providence must do the rest. With this

and ground. Every morning, whistling a cheerful air, he would set his drills in circular motion, and all day he would keep it turning and turning. At eventide I

question hopefully, then nervously, and f

r saw in your life." And, with the passion of the born geologist gleaming in his eye, he would pick up a handful of shining specim

doned farm of ours certainly proved herself to be a mighty variegated mineral prospect. In the course of four weeks that six-inch hole broug

. On second thought, I am not so sure about the radium. It occurs to me that we did strike a trace of something resembl

get any water here, either; but before we quit we ran into a layer of wonderful white marble. If anybody ever discovers a way of getting marble for monuments and statuary out of a hole

g apparatus to a point away down in the valley, and the contractor retuned his engine and inserted a new steel drill-his other one had been worn completely out-and we be

and our corn has been gathered, and in a rich golden store, it fills our new corncrib. We are eating our own chi

w that was because they were strange turnips, not turnips which had grown in our own soil and for which I could have

for nearly two consecutive weeks before the country life palled upon her sensitive spirit. And the day before that we lost a perfect treasure of a housemaid. She disliked something that was said by

. I suggested that we think up charades and acrostics-I am very fertile at acrostics-and have anagram parties now and then to while away the laggard hours. But no;

wn provender, and shortly we shall start the home of our dreams. And to-day something else happened that filled our cup of joy to overflo

and unafraid through the undergrowth not fifty yards from my workroom! Last night, when I opened my bedroom window-in the garage-to wa

ome over now as often as pleases him. Our chal