AGRICULTURAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 103 



look at it now, you must have had considerable exec- 

 utive ability to manage them. But what mpressed 

 me most was when I asked you if you could work all 

 those hard examples in the back of Davis* Arithmetic, 

 you said you could, and it seemed to me that any per- 

 son who could do that must be a highly educated person. 

 Indeed, I have no mean opinion of it yet at least 

 when I was old enough to do them I felt rather proud 

 of it." 



During that winter one other thing happened 

 which had an influence on my after life. A cousin 

 of mine was to be married so I got a day off at the 

 end of the week and attended the wedding, after 

 which a party was made up to escort the bride and 

 groom wherever they should choose to go. A 

 half-dozen young couples in as many sleighs, set 

 out and a merry three days it was for most of us. 

 The following Monday morning I got back 

 home, four miles from my school, sleepy, tired and 

 mad ! My girl had showered her smiles on a hand- 

 somer man than I at one of the villages where we 

 had stopped, and as my puppy-love had now passed 

 away and as I had spent the earnings of a whole 

 month, I was in a reflective frame of mind. By 

 the time I had walked the four miles to my school 

 the old saying, "A fool and his money is soon 

 parted " seemed to me true. Now, I reckon, that 

 the money spent in those three days, chasing after 



