it; so I began to think
maybe she wouldn't like it, and to wish I had brought her, before I
closed the deal. By the time I returned home, packed up, and travelled
this far on the way back with her, there was considerable tension in my
feelings--considerable tension," repeated father as he turned the
horses and began driving carefully, measuring the distance from Hoods'
and the bridge. At last he stopped, backed a step, and said: "There,
mommy, did I hit the spot?"

"You did!" said mother, stepping from the carriage and walking up
beside him. She raised one hand and laid it on the lamp near him. He
shifted the lines, picked up her hand, and held it tight. Mother stood
there looking, just silently looking. May jabbed me in the side,
leaned over and whispered:

"Could we but stand where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not our Little Creek, nor dinner getting cold,
Could fright us from that shore."

I couldn't help giggling, but I knew that was no proper time, so I hid
my head in her lap and smothered the sound the best I could; but they
were so busy soft-soddering each other they didn't pay a bit of
attention to us.

It was May now, all the leaves were fresh and dustless, everything that
flowered at that time was weighted with bloom, bees hummed past,
butterflies sailed through the carriage, while birds at the tops of
their voices, all of them, every kind there was, sang fit to split;
friendly, unafraid bluebirds darted around us, and talked a blue streak
from every fence rider. Made you almost crazy to know what they said.
The Little Creek flowed at our feet across the road, through the
blue-flag swamp, where the red and the yellow birds lived. You could
see the sun flash on the water where it emptied into the stream that
crossed Deams', and flowed through our pasture; and away beyond the Big
Hill arose, with the new church on top, the graveyard around it, the
Big Creek flashing at its base. In the valley between lay our fields,
meadows, the big red barn, the white house with the yard filled with
trees and flowering shrubs, beyond it the garden, all made up, neat and
growing; and back of it the orchard in full bloom.

Mother looked and looked. Suddenly she raised her face to father.
"Paul," she said, "that first day, did you ever dream it could be made
to look like this?"

"No!" said father. "I never did! I saw houses, barns, and cleared
fields; I hoped for comfort and prosper