's not big as places go but its
record can't be beat sence Ethan Allen's day. Webb knows, fer I
marched away with the boys in blue back in '61, though I was a
bare-footed youngster, long 'bout fourteen, and couldn't do nothin'
more useful than beat a drum. And thar's our service flag, Missy, and
every last one of the six of 'em's come through hul--thanks be to God!
And thar's the hotel by the post-office and cross here's the school
house which I helped build the winter they wa'n't no call fur the
stage. This is the Common and thet's the meetin' house, as anyone
could see, fur it ain't a line different from the meetin' houses over
at Bend and Cliffsdale and Nor' Hero and all over Vermont, I guess.
Funny how they never wanted only one kind o' meetin' houses! And
here's the old smithy lookin' like it was older than B'lindy 'lowed,
and here's whar we turn to go up the Leavitt road. Seein' how you're
sort of a special passenger I'll go right along up to Happy House,
though it ain't my custum!"

Nancy was tremendously excited. She stared to right and left at the
little old frame and stone houses set squarely in grass-grown yards
flanked by flowerbeds, all abloom, and each wearing, because of tightly
closed blinds, an appearance of utter desertion. On the wooden "stoop"
of the place Webb had dignified by calling a "hotel" were lounging a
few men who had scarcely stirred when Webb in salutation had flourished
his whip at them. The Commons, hot in the June sun, was deserted save
for a few chickens pecking around in the long grass. The green
shutters of the meeting house were tightly closed, too. From the
gaping door of the smithy came not a sound. Even the great branches of
the trees scarcely stirred. Over everything brooded a peaceful quiet.

"Oh, how delicious," thought Nancy. "How very, very old everything is.
_How_ I shall love it!" She leaned forward to catch a first glimpse of
Happy House.

"Back by the smithy thar's old Dan'l Hopworth's place. Shame to have
it on Miss Sabriny's road only I 'low most as long as the Leavitts been
here thar's been some of the no-good Hopworths! Poor old Dan'l's 'bout
as shiftless as any o' them, B'lindy sez, and his grandchillern ain't
any better. And that thar leads down to old man Judson's. His ten
acre piece runs right up to Miss Sabriny's. And _thar's_ Happy House."

Through the giant elms Nancy caught her first glimpse of the vine
covered old stone walls. Her fir