So they took out Pumpkinseed and Fox, and Mr. March led them on ahead. Then Deacon Plummer and the mule-driver pushed the wagon backward down the road till they came to a place where there was a curve in the road, and they could push it up so close to the rock that there was room for another wagon to pass. There the mule-driver drove his wagon by; and then Mr. March led Fox and Pumpkinseed down, and harnessed them to the wagon again: all this time Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer and Rob and Nelly stood on the edge of the precipice, wherever they could find a secure place, and holding on to each other. As the mule team started on, the driver called back: "There's three or four more behind me: you'd better keep a sharp lookout, mister." "I should think so," exclaimed Deacon Plummer, "this is the perkiest place for teams to pass in thet ever I got into. I don't much like the thought o' comin' up and down here with all our teamin'." "No," said Mrs. March. "I'll never drive down here as long as I live." "Never's a long word, wife," laughed Mr. March. "If we're going to live in this Pass, I don't doubt we shall get so used to this road, we sha'n't think any thing about it." The road wound like a snake, turning first one way and then the other, and crossing the brook every few minutes. Sometimes they would be in dark shadow, when they were close to the left-hand hill; and then, in a minute, they would come out again into full sunlight. "It's just like going right back again from after sundown to the middle of the afternoon: isn't it, mamma?" said Nelly. "How queer it feels!" "Yes," said Mrs. March, "and I do not like the sundown part. I hope our house is not in such a narrow part of the Pass as this." Presently they saw a white house a little way ahead, on the right-hand side of the road. A high, rocky precipice rose immediately behind it; and the brook seemed to be running under the house, it was so close to it. The house was surrounded by tall pine and fir trees; and, on the opposite side of the road the hill was so steep and high that already, although it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun had gone down out of sight, and the house was dark and cold. The whole party looked anxiously at this house. "That can't be it, can it?" said Mrs. March. "Oh, no!" said Mr. March; "it isn't in the least such a house as the photograph showed: but I will stop and ask." A man was chopping wood a few steps from the house. Mr. March called to him. "This isn't Garland's, is it?" Instead of replying, the man laid down his axe, and walked slowly out to the road, staring very hard at them all. "Be you the folks that's comin' to live to Garland's?" he said. "Yes," said the Deacon; "and we hope this isn't the place; if 'tis, we hain't been told the truth, that's all."