EARLY MANHOOD IN THE MIDDLE WEST 135 



in it for we had all been vaccinated and I alone had 

 escaped probably owing to a vaccination in my 

 boyhood. Therefore when the boy's fever rose 

 from vaccination we decided at once to move out 

 to the farm which we had recently purchased and 

 which was five miles from town. 



The farm, or rather the two farms, were in 

 bad condition and the houses were even worse. 

 They had been so much neglected that they were 

 hardly habitable, but we moved in to one of them 

 and suffered the inconvenience of repairing it over 

 our heads. What with these discomforts and 

 another possible case of small-pox, the first days at 

 the farm were anything but joyous. Nor was this 

 all : an Irish family had come from Indiana expect- 

 ing to occupy one of the houses and to work a part 

 of the land. Their household goods being delayed 

 in transit, they were allowed to remain in the 

 house from which we had moved and to use some 

 of our household fixtures and they also de- 

 veloped small-pox. The parents and the oldest 

 girl had had the disease in Ireland but in just nine 

 days one of their children came down and in eigh- 

 teen days, another. 



I brought to the farm some mother hogs and 

 their offspring; by mid-summer they had all died 



