How We Started. 29 



was to ease his conscience for sponging on us poor folks when he 

 was making lots of money. Well, I took no dinner when I went 

 to Akron. After he had loaded the mower on for me and got 

 my note he coolly went to dinner without a word to me, and I 

 went home without any and my horses, too. I feel like publishing 

 his name, but have charity enough to think that possibly he for- 

 got, and forbear. How such little unpleasant incidents will stay 

 in one's memory ! We got along without a horse rake the first' 

 year. And really I had better have worked out in haying that 

 year and bought hay and not got a mower at all . The condition of 

 fields and crops was such that the mower was a very poor invest- 

 ment. For example, I worked around among stumps and stones 

 most of one forenoon with mower and scythe and raked by hand 

 and loaded about all the afternoon and drew all the hay (weeds 

 and stuff, I mean) to the barn about dark, at night, on that one- 

 horse wagon. My good neighbors on either side were very 

 friendly to us in our poverty and let me take a horse rake when- 

 ever they were not using it. 



