136 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



with the hog cholera, save two or three that re- 

 covered but might better have died. Before I 

 could start raising hogs again the farm had to be 

 disinfected or at any rate, all the places where the 

 hogs had ever nested. There was no barn or 

 stable on the place and the cattle of the former 

 owner had spent most of the time during the pre- 

 vious winter on the leeward side of the house, con- 

 sequently our dwelling was surrounded by a 

 muddy, poached barnyard without fences. 



That spring was, however, the darkness that 

 comes just before daylight. I had paid out all my 

 money on the farms and was still in debt; I could 

 not buy hogs so I sowed a large area to oats which, 

 fortunately, sold for fifty cents per bushel. I used 

 to haul 100 bushels to the load, that is, I received 

 fifty dollars as compared to the three dollars per 

 load which the Illinois farmers had received for 

 their corn two years previously. The next summer, 

 however, my hold-over snap corn sold at the crib 

 for seventy cents per bushel. 



I think it was in January, 1864, that my wife 

 and I took stock again and found that we were 

 out of debt and that the farm was paid for. Some- 

 time during the latter part of that month we left 

 home on a Saturday to attend some meetings at 



