instead of looking at the strawberries, you give just one look at
the mountains. Count how many you can see all round."

"One, two, three, five," counted Olly. "What great big humps! Should we
be able to touch the sky if we got up to the top of that one, mother?"
and he pointed to a great blue mountain where the clouds seemed to be
resting on the top.

"Well, if you were up there just now, you would be all among the clouds,
and it would seem like a white fog all round you. So you would be
touching the clouds at any rate."

Olly opened his eyes very wide at the idea of touching the clouds.

"Why, mother, we can't touch the clouds at home!"

"That comes of living in a country as flat as a pancake," said Mr.
Norton. "Just you wait till we can buy a tame mountain, and carry it to
Willingham with us. Then we'll put it down in the middle of the garden,
and the clouds will come down to sit on the top of it just as they do
here. But now, who can scramble over that gate?"

For the gate at the other end of the garden was locked, and as the
gardener couldn't be found, everybody had to scramble over, mother
included. However, Mr. Norton helped them all over, and then they found
themselves on a path running along the green mountain side. On they
went, through pretty bits of steep hay-fields, where the grass seemed
all clover and moon-daisies, till presently they came upon a small
hunched-up house, with a number of sheds on one side of it and a
kitchen-garden in front. This was Uncle Richard's farm; a very tiny
farm, where a man called John Backhouse lived, with his wife and two
little girls and a baby-boy. Except just in the hay-time, John Backhouse
had no men to help him, and he and his wife had to do all the work, to
look after the sheep, and the cows, the pigs, the horse, and the
chickens, to manage the garden and the hayfield, and to take the butter
and milk to the people who wanted to buy it. When their children grew up
and were able to help, Backhouse and his wife would be able to do it all
very well; but just now, when they were still quite small, it was very
hard work; it was all the farmer and his wife could do to make enough to
keep themselves and their children fed and clothed.

Milly and Olly were very anxious to see the farmer's children and looked
out for them in the garden as they walked up to the house, but there
were no signs of them. The door was opened by Mrs. Backhouse, the
farmer's wife, who held a fair-h