n. There are some gardens of mine where somebody
plants the seeds and pulls the weeds for me every year without my ever
taking a bit of trouble. I have trees and fields and woods and seas and
houses, I own a great deal of the world to think and plan and dream
about. The picture belongs most to the man who loves it best and sees
entirely its meaning. We can always have just as much as we can take of
things, and we can lay up as much treasure as we please in the higher
world of thought that can never be spoiled or hindered by moth or rust,
as lower and meaner wealth can be.

* * * * *

As for this farm of mine, I found it one day when I was coming through
the woods on horseback trying to strike a shorter way out into the main
road. I was pushing through some thick underbrush, and looking ahead I
noticed a good deal of clear sky as if there were an open place just
beyond, and presently I found myself on the edge of a clearing. There
was a straggling orchard of old apple-trees, the grass about them was
close and short like the wide door-yard of an old farm-house and into
this cleared space the little pines were growing on every side. The old
pines stood a little way back watching their children march in upon
their inheritance, as if they were ready to interfere and protect and
defend, if any trouble came. I could see that it would not be many
years, if they were left alone, before the green grass would be covered,
and the old apple-trees would grow mossy and die for lack of room and
sunlight in the midst of the young woods. It was a perfect acre of turf,
only here and there I could already see a cushion of juniper, or a tuft
of sweet fern or bayberry. I walked the horse about slowly, picking a
hard little yellow apple here and there from the boughs over my head,
and at last I found a cellar all grown over with grass, with not even a
bit of a crumbling brick to be seen in the hollow of it. No doubt there
were some underground. It was a very large cellar, twice as large as any
I had ever found before in any of these deserted places, in the woods or
out. And that told me at once that there had been a large house above
it, an unusual house for those old days; the family was either a large
one, or it had made for itself more than a merely sufficient covering
and shelter, with no inch of unnecessary room. I knew I was on very high
land, but the trees were so tall and close that I could not see beyon