Consequently, when its owner had tired
of Colonial life, he had at first rented the farm, but, finding this
unsatisfactory, he, in a moment of disgust, advertised it for sale.
Pretentious in its plan and in its appointments, its neglected and run
down condition gave it an air of decayed gentility, depressing alike
to the eye of the beholder and to the selling price of the owner. Haley
bought it and bought it cheap. From the high road a magnificent avenue
of maples led to a house of fine proportions, though sadly needing
repair. The wide verandahs, the ample steps were unpainted and falling
into ruin; the lawn reaching from the front door to the orchard was
spacious, but overgrown with burdocks, nettles and other noxious weeds;
the orchard, which stretched from the lawn to the road on both sides
of the lane, had been allowed to run sadly to wood. At the side of the
house the door-yard was littered with abandoned farm implements, piles
of old fence rails and lumber and other impedimenta, which, though
kindly Nature, abhorring the unsightly rubbish, was doing her utmost to
hide it all beneath a luxuriant growth of docks, milkweed, and nettles,
lent an air of disorder and neglect to the whole surroundings. The
porch, or "stoop," about the summer kitchen was set out with an
assortment of tubs and pails, pots and pans, partially filled with
various evil looking and more evil smelling messes, which afforded an
excellent breeding and feeding place for flies, mosquitoes, and other
unpleasant insects.
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