Cowbells tinkled in the distance, for the weather tempted farmers
to let their cattle run in the pastures even so early in the
season. A horse whinnied shrilly to a mate in a distant field.

The creaking of the heavy wheels of a laden farm-cart was a
mellow sound in Hiram's ears. Beyond a fir plantation, high on
the hillside, the sharply outlined steeple of a little church lay
against the soft blue horizon.

"A beauty-spot!" Hiram muttered. "What a site for a home! And
yet people want to build their houses right on an automobile
road, and in sight of the rural mail box!"

His imagination began to riot, spurred by the outlook and by the
nearer prospect of wood and hillside. The sun now lay warmly
upon him as he sat upon a stump and drank in the beauty of it
all.

After a time his ear, becoming attuned to the multitudinous
voices of the wood, descried the silvery note of falling water.
He arose and traced the sound.

Less than twenty yards away, and not far from the bluff, a
vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a
monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool
so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a
pattern by the action of the water, lay revealed.

Hiram knelt on a mossy rock beside the pool, and bending put his