32 Our Farming. 



supplied with clothes when we moved to the farm, and these had 

 to last. A gentleman calling here once, who had known us long, 

 said, " Your clothes last like those of the children of Israel, and 

 if you should get a new hat folks wouldn't know you." We can 

 laugh over this now; but, oh, how it hurt then. We were not 

 paying all our interest as it was, and were doing just the best we 

 possibly could, according to our light. Of course, we did some- 

 what better year by year, as we gained by experience and as our 

 clover growing, manuring and tillage began to tell. I have 

 given you the darkest side when we were at the very bottom. 

 I shall not attempt to give a connected history of these first years, 

 only a general outline of how we worked. Nor am I certain that 

 every incident is exactly in order. One forgets after so long, but 

 the facts as given can never be forgotten, only, perhaps, the exact 

 order in which they occurred. Had we been making money and 

 moving right along towards success, evidently, our hard work 

 would have seemed light, and we would have cheerfully endured 

 going without nearly everything that would make life pleasant. 

 As it was, the writer became heartily sick of the endless worry 

 and drudgery of his life and that his wife had to endure. He was 

 disgusted with trying to do a little of everything and the inability 

 to do anything really well unless something else was neglected. 

 If there is anything that makes hard work really a pleasure to me 

 it is the ability to do that work just as well as I can. You can, 

 perhaps, imagine how I fretted under the circumstances I was in, 

 when not too utterly exhausted to think at all. Working like a 

 slave, with nothing to show for it and no prospect of anything ! 

 That was the serious truth that slowly began to come home to my 

 mind. We had simply dropped out of town life, and almost 

 knew our friends no more. We actually could not dress fit to go 

 to church or anywhere. Well do I remember when an old friend 

 died and his funeral was held in the church. He had been so 

 kind to me in years past that I felt that I must go to his funeral, 

 but I hadn't a decent thing to wear. It was early in the season, 

 and I had a white linen coat or duster that a brother-in-law had 

 given me the year before. I put it on and went, and I went up to 

 the front to see my old friend's face, but, in spite of my sadness, I 

 could not help but feel the amused glance of a hundred pair of 

 eyes. Bvery spark of the old Adam within me flashed with anger 

 as I tramped homeward. What could 1 do? What should I do? 

 Give up, and go to work for some one in town or city at good 

 wages, which I could get? Why the little home in town which 

 we could have and the better life seemed to me like paradise 

 regained when I thought it over. I have sometimes thought I 

 did wrong in not yielding and going where I coul'd care for 

 myself and family better. But it was always hard for me to back 

 out or give up. When a boy in school I often made a poor reci- 

 tation because I wouldn't, or, rather, could not, skip a hard 



