I suppose every one can say, “I have a little kingdom where I give laws.”  Each of us has truly a kingdom in thought, and a certain spiritual possession.  There are some gardens of mine where somebody plants the seeds and pulls the weeds for me every year without my ever taking a bit of trouble.  I have trees and fields and woods and seas and houses, I own a great deal of the world to think and plan and dream about.  The picture belongs most to the man who loves it best and sees entirely its meaning.  We can always have just as much as we can take of things, and we can lay up as much treasure as we please in the higher world of thought that can never be spoiled or hindered by moth or rust, as lower and meaner wealth can be.

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As for this farm of mine, I found it one day when I was coming through the woods on horseback trying to strike a shorter way out into the main road.  I was pushing through some thick underbrush, and looking ahead I noticed a good deal of clear sky as if there were an open place just beyond, and presently I found myself on the edge of a clearing.  There was a straggling orchard of old apple-trees, the grass about them was close and short like the wide door-yard of an old farm-house and into this cleared space the little pines were growing on every side.  The old pines stood a little way back watching their children march in upon their inheritance, as if they were ready to interfere and protect and defend, if any trouble came.  I could see that it would not be many years, if they were left alone, before the green grass would be covered, and the old apple-trees would grow mossy and die for lack of room and sunlight in the midst of the young woods.  It was a perfect acre of turf, only here and there I could already see a cushion of juniper, or a tuft of sweet fern or bayberry.  I walked the horse about slowly, picking a hard little yellow apple here and there from the boughs over my head, and at last I found a cellar all grown over with grass, with not even a bit of a crumbling brick to be seen in the hollow of it.  No doubt there were some underground.  It was a very large cellar, twice as large as any I had ever found before in any of these deserted places, in the woods or out.  And that told me at once that there had been a large house above it, an unusual house for those old days; the family was either a large one, or it had made for itself more than a merely sufficient covering and shelter, with no inch of unnecessary room.  I knew I was on very high land, but the trees were so tall and close that I could not see beyond them.  The wind blew over pleasantly and it was a curiously protected and hidden place, sheltered and quiet, with its one small crop of cider apples dropping ungathered to the ground, and unharvested there, except by hurrying black ants and sticky, witless little snails.