"Mr. Sparrow," said Quintin, "this farm contains two hundred and two
acres of arable land, good land, no better, in fact, in the country.
Besides, we have twenty acres of wooded land and a tenant house. This
machinery is the best that we could find. We have two men--Giles and
Ephraim; they are the best hands we know of, for Mr. Rixey trained them
from their boyhood; there are no better. Mr. Rixey was our farmer
twenty-six years. He died last November. Let us now have a look at the
Monastery."
Half a mile away they came to it, a large five-story brick building in
the midst of native oak trees; a wide driveway led up to the front door,
while in front was a sparkling fountain. Another, a smaller building,
occupied a site near by, and constituted the president's residence. The
whole was inclosed with a tall iron fence.
Years before our story begins this land (three hundred acres) was donated
by Richard Thorndyke, a wealthy Episcopalian, for a training school for
clergymen, to which gift was added as an endowment fund one hundred
thousand dollars on the condition that the church should erect suitable
buildings. Thorndyke Theological Seminary was its original name; but, as
the students as well as the teachers were all men, the people soon began
to call it the Monastery, and in the course of years this became its
common title; and the farm became known far and wide as Monastery Farm.
This institution had from its inception found peculiar favor with the
church as well as with the people, and the buildings were speedily
erected.
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