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pected. He had conducted matters, for one so inexperienced, 

 with admirable skill, and had made extraordinary improve- 

 ments, having increased the actual value of his estate, accord- 

 ing to its produce, a hundred per cent. I asked him if his crops 

 did not much more than pay the cost ; — yes, much more ; if 

 his improvements had not fully compensated the expense ; yes ! 

 land which he had redeemed, which cost him only ten dollars 

 an acre, was now worth more than a hundred. Where was 

 the deficiency then or the disappointment ? Why! he did not 

 find so much cash in his pocket at the cud of the year as in 

 his former business, which was an extensive concern, employ- 

 ing a large capital. But what had he done? First, he had 

 nearly doubled the value of his farm. Next, he had supported 

 his large family in the abundance of all the substantial com- 

 forts which the farm could be made to yield. Next, he had not 

 incurred a single debt. Better than all this, he had given to 

 his children vigor of muscle and energy of resolution ; and 

 taught them the use of their own eyes and hands and feet, 

 which many children in the city never learn, because they must 

 use those of other people, or " spoil their servants. " Now 

 the fresh breezes of summer, wafted over the green meadows 

 and forests, had supplied odors, and the clear winds of winter 

 sweeping over fields glittering with frost and snow had painted 

 his daughters' cheeks with a vermilion hue, which all the es- 

 sence and perfume shops in the city could not supply ; and he 

 himself, then a poor nervous, consumptive dyspeptic, patron- 

 izing all sorts of quackery from Brandreth's pills down to the 

 Indian Specific, and looking like a half-withered poplar tree, 

 now wore the figure of a man, and could stand out in a storm 

 like the gnarled oak waving its head with a triumph correspond- 

 ing to the violence of the tempest. Was this no gain ? When 

 he expected more than this from a farm not one fourth so large 

 as he could manage, his expectations were as unreasonable as 

 for a retail dealer in tea and coffee and nutmegs and indigo, to 

 look for the same large returns as the successful merchant who 

 owns the whole ship and cargo, in which they came. His 

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