6 MY TEN-ROD FARM; 



. 



poor woman, have made a place for myself in the world 

 and become rich, and all this with my own hands. 



My parents were in comfortable circumstances, and, like 

 most girls of my class, I was brought up with little or no 

 knowledge of how to work. I could play and sing as well 

 as most girls. I knew how to sew ; but, beyond this, com- 

 paratively nothing. I was married to Mr. Gilman when I 

 was twenty. My parents both died soon after. My new 

 home was always one of ease and comfort, my husband 

 being foreman of the large mill you see yonder, and in re- 

 ceipt of a liberal income. My life from my youth up was 

 one long happiness, until that dark and sad day when my 

 husband was brought home, on a lovely June morning, 

 mangled and dead, killed in the mill. From that moment 

 my sorrows began. ^Let me pass over the terrible days 

 that followed. I do not remember much about them. I 

 seemed lost in a horrid dream, and only awoke to the sad 

 reality when I was forced to attend to the pressing wants 

 of myself and children. 



Then I knew the meaning of loneliness and poverty. 

 At first I could not look at my condition. They said some- 

 thing to me about the house being sold. 



" Sell my husband's house and home ! Leave this place, 

 leave my home, go away from this garden planted and 

 tended by his hands? No, I will never do it." 



c ' But you must. There is a mortgage on it, and you 

 had better sell out and find a room or two to live in." It 



