The Ploughboy 



was that of a Scotch family from Edinburgh, 

 consisting of a father, son, and daughter, who 

 settled on eighty acres of land within half a 

 mile of our place. The daughter died of con- 

 sumption the third year after their arrival, the 

 son one or two years later, and at last the father 

 followed his two children. Thus sadly ended 

 bright hopes and dreams of a happy home in 

 rich and free America. 



Another neighbor, I remember, after a linger- 

 ing illness died of the same disease in mid- 

 winter, and his funeral was attended by the 

 neighbors in sleighs during a driving snowstorm 

 when the thermometer was fifteen or twenty 

 degrees below zero. The great white plague 

 carried off another of our near neighbors, a fine 

 Scotchman, the father of eight promising boys, 

 when he was only about forty-five years of age. 

 Most of those who suffered from this disease 

 seemed hopeful and cheerful up to a very short 

 time before their death, but Mr. Reid, I re- 

 member, on one of his last visits to our house, 

 said with brave resignation: "I know that 

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