They were not likely to forget the night they decided to buy the lot next door. It seemed the beginning of married life together. To be sure, they had been married nearly a year and they had bought and furnished the house; they had even bought a strip of land on the other side of the house that had come into the market soon after they were married—while they still had a little money to spare.

But in all their purchases before, there had been an element that marked them off by themselves. This new purchase was something different—something entered into from choice, and with a free heart.

They called it the Chinese lot.

It was Eleanor who named it and told

Richard laughingly. But even to herself it was not a common, every-day name. It seemed a kind of dream-place, in a faint, happy light, with Chinese dragons chasing across it.

Within twenty-four hours after their decision, the deed for the lot was in Richard’s pocket; and twenty-four hours later the fence between was torn down, and builders were at work on a wall that took in the new lot and made the whole place one.

Eleanor More watched the men with shining eyes. When her work was done she took her sewing-basket and went into the sunshine across the yard, and stepped over the boundary into the new lot. Just beyond the boundary was a great oak-tree, with wide branches and great roots bulging out of the ground. As she sat down under the tree, she noted the roots; the happy thought crossed her mind of children playing there—each great root a playhouse—with little dishes and mud pies.... Her eyes followed the dream, as she unfolded her work and sat sewing, with the light flecking down on her and on the root playhouses and green grass.

Richard More found her there when he came home from work. He went across to see how much had been finished on the wall. Then he came back and stood and watched her swift needle and the light on her hair.

She looked up.

“Nice place!” he said approvingly.

“Yes—I like the roots!” She patted one of them beside her.

He looked at it vaguely.

“Fine!” he said.

She smiled, but she did not explain.

“Why didn’t you ever sit here before?” he demanded, looking about him.

The needle paused. “Why—?... We never owned it before!”

“You didn’t have to own it—to sit on it.”

“Oh, yes I did! Owning it is half the sitting on it!”

He threw himself on the ground beside her and looked up into the oak-tree, throwing back his head.

Her puzzled eyes regarded him.

“I should never think of coming out here to sit—if we didn’t own it—you know that.”

“Hah! Just like a woman!”

She pricked the needle through the muslin in her hand.

“There was the fence,” she said.

“Climb over!” He had taken a pipe from his pocket.

She reached out her hand. “Not before dinner!” decisively. “You’ll spoil your appetite!” She captured the pipe.

“Oh, very well!” He leaned against the tree and watched her.

She was folding her sewing neatly. “I should never have climbed over!” She pinned the work together in a compact roll and nodded to him.

“You could have gone round—” he said with a teasing note.

“You know what I mean, Dick! I shouldn’t have wanted to sit under a tree that did not belong to us—and that belonged to the Martins or to the Suttons, or to anybody—and not in our own yard—nobody would!”

“Funny idea!” said Dick slowly. “Same tree, same place, just Ours!”

She smiled at him. “Help me up! It’s time for dinner.”

He strolled across the grass beside her to the house, and helped set the table while she was in the kitchen.

He did not smoke his pipe. She had laid it on a high shelf over the mantel as she came in. She had to climb on a chair to reach the mantel. Dick could have reached it with one lift of his hand. But he only eyed it, half-humorously, as he set out doilies and finger-bowls and counted spoons, and called out to the kitchen to know how many forks were needed.

Not for worlds would he have taken down the pipe—not for a single whiff. He had a kind of savage pleasure in it—watching it up there—with its old familiar brown bowl turned to the wall.... Time had been when that pipe was his only friend.... He did not own a house and lot then—and an oak-tree....

He peeped out of the window at the tree, serene in the evening light.... Suddenly he saw a Chinese Coat—blue and gold, she had said it was; and the happiness in his face deepened. He whistled softly between his teeth as he arranged forks and spoons.... “Our forks and spoons!” he said—and laughed out.

She came to the door. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing—my dear—nothing!” and she returned to the kitchen.

Richard More had not married until he was thirty-five. Eleanor was twenty-six. It had not been easy to win her. She had her tutoring to do.... He took her away from her home town—into his kitchen. But he knew she was happy—far happier than she had been in her little world that looked up to her.... As for himself, he felt as if he moved in a new world—a great world that stretched through leagues—to the moon—or the sun.... The pipe-dreams of old days seemed like hen-coop dreams in the spaces in Eleanor’s mind. Each day he began exploration anew; and each day, in the little circle of her being, he seemed to sweep out into the world—great cosmic paths, and tracks of stars and shining spaces....

She came from the kitchen, smoothing down the sleeves of her gown and casting a last look at the table.

“Too many forks!” she said.

She removed one from each plate, and put it back in its place—neatly in its compartment in the drawer of the shining sideboard.

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