CHAPTER III. 



HOW WK STARTED. 



K came onto the farm in December, having nine cows, 

 one horse, a rather heavy one-horse wagon, harness, 

 and a land roller. Seven of the nine cows had 

 been on the place were those that survived out 

 of the ten bought with the farm. The other two 

 we brought with us from town. One had been 

 our family cow for years ; the other I gave my note 

 for just before we moved over. The horse, old Bill, was a steady 

 going fellow, had the heaves, and was the worst jumper I ever 

 saw. But he was sharp. He would jump out and fill himself in 

 the night and be back in the pasture, sober as a deacon, in the 

 morning. I cannot blame him much now for trying to take 

 better care of himself than I could take of him ; but it was terri- 

 bly exasperating then. One funny incident connected with old 

 Bill will never be forgotten. When we began building new 

 fences, Bill tried his hand, or rather his feet, at jumping one as 

 soon as it was done. The front feet went over all right, but he 

 failed for once to elevate the rear feet quite enough, and the 

 result was he landed on the fence in a rather dangerous position. 

 Although I was angry enough to let him hang there, I ran with 

 an ax to knock the boards off and let him down, for injury to 

 him meant serious loss to us. My little baby daughter saw'the 

 situation, and with her little heart almost broken, she ran scream- 

 ing into the house, exclaiming, "Ma, ma, pa is going to cut old 

 Bill's hind legs off! " She couldn't see any other way to get him 

 over. 



There was little that we could do that winter except to take 

 care of those animals and save the manure. This we did just the 

 best we could under the circumstances. In regard to the manure- 

 saving, that entire subject will be treated in detail by itself. In 

 order to care better for the animals, I first took some logs to mill 

 and got lumber and battens sawed. To save material these were 

 made but y% of an inch thick. There was no attempt at doing 

 anything for looks on the old barn. It would have been useless. 

 We tried to make it warm and comfortable with the least possible 

 expenditure. I nailed on these boards and battens in cold 

 weather, and even worked nights by lamp light until it was done. 

 I paid the saw bill with logs, so really all this improvement cost 

 me was the nails used. I kept to work on the old barn until the 

 stables were so warm that I was entirely comfortable in there 



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