Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm

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Paine Albert Bigelow. Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm

CHAPTER ONE

I. All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook

II. Ghosts like good architecture

III. Our debt to William C. Westbury

IV. Those were lovely days

CHAPTER TWO

I. We carried down a little hair trunk

II. Cap'n Ben has an iron door-sill

III. The thought of going back to "six rooms and improvements"

IV. The soft feet of the rain on the shingles

V. Elizabeth's ideas were not poetic

VI. Our last night in the barn was not like the others

CHAPTER THREE

I. At the threshold of the past

II. Paper-hanging is not a natural gift

III. There is nothing I wouldn't do for a bee – a reasonable bee

IV. There was a place we sometimes visited to see the trout

CHAPTER FOUR

I. There is compensation even for moving

II. There is work about making apple-butter

III. Lazarus's downfall was a matter of pigs

IV. Westbury had advised against wheat

V. Deer – wild deer – on our own farm!

CHAPTER FIVE

I. But Sarah was biding her time

II. We often cooked by our fireplace

III. Under the spell of the white touch

IV. The difficulty was to get busy

CHAPTER SIX

I. The magic of the starlit tree

II. Westbury dropped in

III. No animal except man digs and plants

IV. Then came Bella – and Gibbs

CHAPTER SEVEN

I. We planted a number of things

II. Out of the blue

III "Ah, the bonny cow!"

IV. Strawberries and trout. How is that for a combination?

CHAPTER EIGHT

I. Fate produced a man who had chickens to sell

II. I planted some canterbury-bells

III. And how the family did grow up!

IV. And then one eventful day

V. Was it the spirit of our garden?

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Just below the brow of the hill one of the traces broke (it was in the horse-and-wagon days of a dozen years or so ago), and, if our driver had not been a prompt man our adventure might have come to grief when it was scarcely begun. As it was, we climbed on foot to the top, and waited while he went into a poor old wreck of a house to borrow a string for repairs.

We wondered if the house we were going to see would be like this one. It was of no special design and it had never had a period. It was just a house, built out of some one's urgent need and a lean purse. In the fifty years or so of its existence it had warped and lurched and become sway-backed and old – oh, so old and dilapidated – without becoming in the least antique, but just dismal and disreputable – a veritable pariah of architecture. We thought this too bad, for the situation, with its view down a little valley and in the distance the hazy hills, was the sort of thing that, common as it is in Connecticut, never loses its charm. Never mind, we said, perhaps "our house" would have a view, too.

.....

"I'm glad he's a body," I said. "I wasn t sure."

"It was a Meeker habit to throw nothing away," commented Westbury, as he looked over the assortment. "No matter what it was, they thought they might want it, some day. You'll find the same thing when you get to the attic."

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