Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host.

Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax of the stressful day behind you and drift off to sleep.

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Tonight, I will be reading

A short story by Frank R. Stockton,

my unwilling neighbor.

So lie down, close your eyes,

and let me read you a story.

I was about 25 years old when I began life as the owner of a vineyard in Western Virginia.

I bought a large tract of land, the greater part of which lay upon the sloping

side of one of the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the exposure being that most favorable to the growth

of the vine. I am an enthusiastic lover of the country and of country life, and believe that I should derive more

pleasure as well as profit from the culture of my far-stretching vineyard than I would from

ordinary farm operations. I built myself a good house of moderate size upon a little plateau

on the higher part of my estate. Sitting in my port, smoking my

pipe after the labours of the day, I could look down over my vineyard into a beautiful valley,

with here and there a little curling smoke arising from some of the few dwellings, which were

scattered about among the groves and spreading fields,

and above this beauty, I could imagine all my hillside clothed in green and purple.

...