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