“We must enter the home lot from this level at the foot of the hill,” said she, “wind gracefully through the timber, and come out near those four large trees on the very highest ground.  That will be effective and easily managed, and will give me a chance at landscape gardening, which I am just aching to try.”

“All right,” said I, “you shall have a free hand.  Let’s drive around the boundaries of our land and behold its magnitude before we make other plans.”

We drove westward, my eyes intent upon the fields, the fences, the crops, and everything that pertained to the place.  I had waited so many years for the sense of ownership of land that I could hardly realize that this was not another dream from which I would soon be awakened by something real.  I noticed that the land was fairly smooth except where it was broken by half-rotted stumps or out-cropping boulders, that the corn looked well and the oats fair, but the pasture lands were too well seeded to dock, milkweed, and wild mustard to be attractive, and the fences were cheap and much broken.

The woodland near the western limit proved to be practically a virgin forest, in which oak trees predominated.  The undergrowth was dense, except near the road; it was chiefly hazel, white thorn, dogwood, young cherry, and second growth hickory and oak.  We turned the corner and followed the woods for half a mile to where a barbed wire fence separated our forest from the woodland adjoining it.  Coming back to the starting-point we turned north and slowly climbed the hill to the east of our home lot, silently developing plans.  We drove the full half-mile of our eastern boundary before turning back.

I looked with special interest at the orchard, which was on the northeast forty.  I had seen it on my first visit, but had given it little attention, noting merely that the trees were well grown.  I now counted the rows, and found that there were twelve; the trees in each row had originally been twenty, and as these trees were about thirty-five feet apart, it was easy to estimate that six acres had been given to this orchard.  The vicissitudes of seventeen years had not been without effect, and there were irregular gaps in the rows,—­here a sick tree, there a dead one.  A careless estimate placed these casualties at fifty-five or sixty, which I later found was nearly correct.  This left 180 trees in fair health; and in spite of the tight sod which covered their roots and a lamentable lack of pruning, they were well covered with young fruit.  They had been headed high in the old-fashioned way, which made them look more like forest trees than a modern orchard.  They had done well without a husbandman; what could not others do with one?

The group of farm buildings on the north forty consisted of a one-story cottage containing six rooms—­sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and a bedroom opening off each—­with a lean-to shed in the rear, and some woe-begone barns, sheds, and out-buildings that gave the impression of not caring how they looked.  The second group was better.  It was south of the orchard on the home forty, and quite near the road.