And everything is ready . Yes , I think everything is ready , except a bit of cooking . And wo n't this orchard be a surprise to her ! I 'm just going to bring her out here as soon as I can , never saying a word . I 'll fetch her through the spruce lane , and when we come to the end of the path I 'll step back casual-like , and let her go out from under the trees alone , never suspecting . It 'll be worth ten times the trouble to see her big , brown eyes open wide and hear her say , ` Oh , daddy ! Why , daddy ! ' '' He rubbed his hands again and laughed softly to himself . He was a tall , bent old man , whose hair was snow white , but whose face was fresh and rosy . His eyes were a boy 's eyes , large , blue and merry , and his mouth had never got over a youthful trick of smiling at any provocation -- and , oft-times , at no provocation at all . To be sure , White Sands people would not have given you the most favourable opinion in the world of Old Man Shaw . First and foremost , they would have told you that he was `` shiftless , '' and had let his bit of a farm run out while he pottered with flowers and bugs , or rambled aimlessly about in the woods , or read books along the shore . Perhaps it was true ; but the old farm yielded him a living , and further than that Old Man Shaw had no ambition . He was as blithe as a pilgrim on a pathway climbing to the west . He had learned the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it -- that there is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more convenient season , because it will not be there then . And it is very easy to be happy if you know , as Old Man Shaw most thoroughly knew , how to find pleasure in little things . He enjoyed life , he had always enjoyed life and helped others to enjoy it ; consequently his life was a success , whatever White Sands people might think of it . What if he had not `` improved '' his farm ? There are some people to whom life will never be anything more than a kitchen garden ; and there are others to whom it will always be a royal palace with domes and minarets of rainbow fancy . The orchard of which he was so proud was as yet little more than the substance of things hoped for -- a flourishing plantation of young trees which would amount to something later on .
Old Man Shaw 's house was on the crest of a bare , sunny hill , XXXXX a few staunch old firs and spruces behind it -- the only trees that could resist the full sweep of the winds that blew bitterly up from the sea at times .
To as because except in of out over that with