60 ADVENTURES IN IDEALISM 



inexperience, several woodchoppers from Dennisville 

 were employed to work alongside of them. The inex- 

 perienced beginner and the professional chopper were 

 paid alike, just as an encouragement to the immigrant 

 farmer; for, ,if he had not been paid for his labor, 

 he would have thrown up his hands in disgust too 

 early in the venture. Needless to say, the productive- 

 ness of the old-time woodchopper was incomparably 

 higher than that of the future farmer; but paying 

 them alike for widely different results served a certain 

 big purpose. The future farmer was being slowly 

 but surely acclimated. He was getting used to hard 

 physical labor and making a living wage at the same 

 time. 



Woodbine, in May, 1892, was a veritable bee-hive. 

 On the one side of the track was the little boarding- 

 house of Mrs. Lipman, who was the sweetest, kindest 

 of women. She made her hearth the fireside of every 

 man who, in the cold evenings, had nothing but a barn 

 to go to cold comfort indeed after a trying day's 

 work in the open. On the other side of the railroad, 

 at the back of the house, was my husband's office, 

 always crowded to capacity, in the evenings, with men 

 who came in to be paid for work done ; to have money- 

 orders sent with letters to the folks back home ; or to 

 ask all kinds of advice. 



A grocery was soon opened. People would come 

 many miles to see the new settlement ; it was the talk 

 of the county. 



