1947 "First Edition" stated on copyright page; J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia; hardbound; very good condition with unmarked pages; no dust jacket.
 
from opening page -
ELEPHANTS HAD been buried on that land, and back in the glorious days on this country road you saw men in sweaters and caps leading the living elephants for their exercise in the sunshine of a spring morn ing. That pasture had once trembled beneath the hoofs of a hundred horses, and camels had munched hay on that farm. In those flamboyant years, a lazy hippopotamus had grunted in the Animal House, and if you walked those hills at night you heard lions roaring drowsily as they dreamed.

But that was over, now. The great days were dead. On the south slope of the hill the farm slept in the yellow autumn. The buildings marked Paint Shop and Blacksmith Shop and Baggage Stock stood silent in decay. Only sometimes you saw a girl hurrying into the house with a quick glance at the empty road, as if expecting somebody she did not want to see...