the water question; and yet at the outset it ap-
peared to us the lack of water would be the very
least of our troubles. When we took title to our
abandoned farm, and for the first time explored
the bramble-grown valley leading up from the pro-
posed site of our house to the woodland, we several
times had to wade, and once or twice thought we
should have to swim. Why, we actually congratu-
lated ourselves upon having acquired riparian
rights without paying for them.

This was in the springtime; and the springs along
the haunches of the hills upon either side of the
little ravine were speaking in burbly murmuring
voices, like overflowing mouths, as they spilled forth
their accumulated store of the melted snows of the
winter before; and the April rainstorms had made
a pond of every low place in the county.

In our ignorance we assumed that, since there was
now plenty of water of Nature's furnishing, there
always would be plenty of water forthcoming from
the same prodigal source--more water than we
could possibly ever need unless we opened up a
fresh-water bathing beach in the lower meadow of
our place. So we dug out and stoned up the upper-
most spring, which seemed to have the most gen-

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