134 FORTY-FOUR YEARS OP 



look at the country. But it not suiting my ideas, Mary 

 persuaded me to buy a little farm adjoining the fifty acres 

 I lived on. I promised to pay four hundred dollars for it ; 

 one hundred and fifty dollars of which was to be cash in 

 hand. I borrowed forty dollars, paid down the money, 

 and gave my note for the balance, to be paid in two years. 

 Everything possible was done to raise the balance of the 

 money, in order to save the interest. I moved on the new 

 place, worked night and day to maintain my family (which 

 had now increased to seven children), and to raise money 

 with which to pay for our land. When the first note fell 

 due, every child that had fifty cents loaned it to me to aid 

 in the payment of the note for one hundred and twenty- 

 dollars ; which was paid, and the note taken up. 



I attended to my farm as well as I could with my little 

 means ; but when the warm weather returned, I was again 

 attacked with the rheumatic pains, and laid until July as 

 helpless as a child, and my body became so crooked that I 

 thought I would be a complete cripple. After the pain 

 left me, I could not stand straight ; so one morning I tried 

 to lay myself on my face, thinking the weight of my back 

 would press my back-bone and hips straight. But it was 

 like pulling the joints out of place, and I could not lay 

 tliat way any longer than I could hold ray breath ; when 

 I would be compelled to turn on my side and rest. I tried 

 it again and again, until it became less painful, and I could 

 hiy in that position with very little trouble. From that 

 iinic I continued to lay that way, till I became as straight 

 and as strong as I was before. 



I exerted myself in every way that I could to make a 

 jollar • and, the same old peddler from whom Mary had 

 bought the powder having come into the neighborhood, 

 .t was agreed that he and I should buy up a load of veni- 

 son and take it to the Federal City 



I collected all my venison, and he bought all he couU 



