"
"I seem not to know where Applegate Farm is," the old gentleman mused.
"It's quite next door to you," said Kirk.
"They call it the Baldwin place, really. But Ken happened to think that
Baldwin's a kind of apple, and there _is_ an orchard and a gate, so we
called it that."
"The old farm-house across the meadow!" There was a shade of perplexity
in the voice. "You live _there_?"
"It's the most beautiful place in the world," said Kirk, with
conviction, "except your garden."
"Beautiful--to you! Why?"
"Oh, everything!" Kirk said, frowning, and trying to put into words what
was really joy in life and spring and the love of his brother and
sister. "Everything--the wind in the trees, and in the chimney at night,
and the little toads that sing,--do you ever hear them?--and the fire,
and, and--_everything_!"
"And youth," said the old gentleman to himself, "and an unconscious
courage to surmount all obstacles. But perhaps, after all, the unseen
part of Applegate Farm is the more beautiful." Aloud, he said: "Do you
like to look at odd things? That is--I mean--"
Kirk helped him out. "I do like to," he said. "I look at them with my
fingers--but it's all the same."
Such things to look at! They were deposited, one after the other, in
Kirk's eager hands,--the intricate carving of Japanese ivory,
entrancingly smooth--almost like something warm and living, after one
had held it for a few adoring moments in careful hands.
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