When Tiny and Johnny had measles, as they had so many things, together, one spring, they were both left rather weak and good-for-nothing, so Mr. Leslie, after a good deal of hunting, found a farmhouse which seemed to him about what he wanted, and took board there for the whole summer, and the whole family. He meant to arrange his work so that he could often take a two-or-three-days’ holiday, beside going home every evening, for he was never so busy in the summer as he was in the winter, and he felt the need of rest and change.
It was a “really and truly farmhouse,” as Tiny said, standing back from the road, at the end of a long green lane, shaded by tall, thick pine trees. And, better still, the nearest railway station was five miles away, and a large, old-fashioned stage, drawn by two tall, thin horses, met the morning and evening trains.
The farmhouse was long and low, with a gambrel roof and great dormer windows, and what garrets that combination makes! It was whitewashed all over the outside—and the inside, too, for that matter—and had faded green shutters. There was a large porch at the front door, with benches at each side, and a small one at the back door, and a wide hall ran straight through the middle of the house, from one porch to the other.
The farm was no make-believe affair of a few acres, with only two or three horses and cows, and a flock of chickens. Orchards and grain fields, meadows and “truck-patches,” stretched away on all sides, almost as far as one could see. Twenty sleek cows came meekly every morning and evening to be milked; six horses were to be watered three times a day; at least a hundred solemn black chickens, with white topknots, scratched about the great barn. Turkeys strutted, ducks and geese quacked, and there was even a pair of proud peacocks. In short, Johnny informed Tiny, before they had been there a day, that it was exactly the sort of farm he meant to have when he was grown up; the only difference he should make would be to have the slide down the side of the haymow a little higher, and to turn half the farmhouse into a gymnasium.
Mr. and Mrs. Allen, who owned this land of enchantment, and let people live in it for six dollars a week, apiece, were kind, comfortable people, who liked to see their boarders eat heartily, and drink plenty of milk.
