114 JUSTIN MORGAN 



places he was made welcome and, for a hundred years 

 and more, men have been telling of these visits. 



Sometimes David rode him to "raising parties," where 

 he stood one side and watched strong young men lift 

 the ponderous bents for the barn or house about to be 

 built. They used pike-poles, and shouted loudly, lifting 

 the bents one by one till the tenons sank into place in 

 the sill-mortises ; then, some dare-devil afraid-of-nothing, 

 went up the new-hoisted bents like a squirrel and drove 

 the pins into place. 



While men worked this way, or at the plow, women 

 sat at home and dipped candles or spun and wove flax 

 and wool, and made them into clothes. 



Those were grand days in Vermont — when neighbors 

 were neighbors, and the world was full of hope and 

 kindliness. 



At this time Samuel Goss owned a newspaper called 

 The Montpelier Watchman, and in its columns could be 

 found notices of the endurance, beauty and gentleness 

 of the Goss— but far from turning his level head, it only 

 made him strive harder to deserve the praise. Modestly 

 and cheerfully he went his way as farm-horse, saddle- 

 horse, carriage-horse ; always endearing himself to every 

 one associated with him. It was his perfect training and 

 his willingness to obey that was ever the secret of suc- 

 cess of Justin Morgan.* 



By this time Montpelier was growing so prosperous, 

 being made the capital in 1808, that people began to 

 think more of pleasure parties, and bees of all sorts were 

 held. History gives the credit to Mistress Debbie 

 Daphne Davis for inventing pumpkin pies, without a 

 goodly supply of which no company was considered com- 



* "In the relations, duties, and pleasures of the road — and 

 family-horse the Morgan has never had an equal in this country, 

 no matter what his blood." — Juhn Wallace, Wallace's Monthly. 



