At more or less regular intervals the trees in it had been allowed to grow much taller and had been wonderfully pruned into the similitude of towers, pinnacles, bells, and many other strange designs.

Here and there the hedge held up a spindling umbrella of greenery, sometimes a double umbrella--a little one above the big one--and over the gateway at the centre; as a sort of final triumph, rose a grandiose arch of interlaced branches upon which the artist had outdone himself in marvels of ornamentation.
I shall never forget the sensation of delight I had over this discovery, or of how I walked, tiptoe, along the road in front, studying each of the marvellous adornments.

How eagerly, too, I looked over at the house beyond--a rather bare, bleak house set on a slight knoll or elevation and guarded at one corner by a dark spruce tree.

At some distance behind I saw a number of huge barns, a cattle yard and a silo--all the evidences of prosperity--with well-nurtured fields, now yellowing with the summer crops, spreading pleasantly away on every hand.
It was nearly dark before I left that bit of roadside, and I shall never forget the eerie impression I had as I turned back to take a final look at the hedge, the strange, grotesque aspect it presented there in the half light with the bare, lonely house rising from the knoll behind.
It was not until some weeks later that I met the owner of the wonderful hedge.

By that time, however, having learned of my interest, I found the whole countryside alive with stories about it and about Old Nathan Toombs, its owner.