bout, where

"'Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green.'

No wonder they named the place Green Acres!

"We left the wide driveway that winds around the hill to the house, and
took the little path that leads straight up to it under the trees. The
footpath to peace, Phil calls it.

"There was smoke coming out of the kitchen chimney, for Lloyd and Mrs.
Sherman had been in the secret and had helped Phil as industriously as
the two genii of the Bottle to get everything ready. He had bought some
of the furniture with the house, some they had helped him choose and
some they waited for me to select myself. But there was enough to make
the place livable right away, and there wasn't a room in the house that
didn't look comfortable and inviting.

"And there was May Lily installed in the kitchen as temporary cook, and
perfectly willing to stay if I wanted her. As if there could be any
question as to that! If there was anything needed to make it seem more
homelike than it already was, I found it when we started out to explore
the back premises. A fussy old hen, with her feathers all fluffed out
importantly, was clucking and scratching for a brood of downy yellow
chickens, just out of the shell. Old Mom Beck had sent them over as a
wedding present, May Lily said.

"When we had been all through the orchard and down to the spring, and
had discovered the rows of currant and gooseberry bushes at the end of
the garden, Phil said in a careless off-hand way that we might as well
take a look through the barn. By this time I had exhausted my whole
stock of exclamations, so I hadn't another word left when he led me up
to a stall, where stood one of the prettiest bay saddle horses I ever
saw in my whole life. That was Father Tremont's present to me.

"'Daddy didn't know what would please you most,' Phil said, 'but I
remembered the pleasure you used to take in old Washington out at the
Wigwam, and Lloyd insisted that you would like a riding horse better
than anything else. She rides every day herself, and was sure you would
enjoy joining her on her gallops across country.'

"Well, by that time, being speechless, all I could do was to put my
arms around the beautiful creature's satiny neck and cry a bit into her
glossy mane. The sheer happiness of having so many of my cherished
dreams come true all at once was too much for me. Her name was
Silver-wings, but from that moment I called her Joy.