I DECLINE TAKING A FARM. 347 



across my mind, with his threadbare bhxck coat, false 

 collars, and shirt-front, and his frame as thin as a 

 skeleton. I shook my head mournfully. He changed 

 his plan, and proposed that I should take a farm. 

 But that I had also reflected on : I was too poor, and 

 although the kind people would have done every thing 

 in their power to help me, I should have been too 

 dependent; for although much is not required to set 

 up farming in America, still there must be something, 

 and it does not look well for the beginner to be always 

 borrowing horse or plow, axe, spade, saw — in short, 

 every farming and household utensil, until at last 

 the most patient man would be worn out, and every- 

 body would be alarmed the moment they saw the 

 borrower coming. I was once witness of such a 

 beginning: a family that came to the forest without any 

 means, were at first most liberally assisted by their 

 neighbors ; they helped them with their fences, in build- 

 ing their house, in clearing and ploughing the land, and 

 lent them every thing, even to flour and pork ; but how 

 could people who began thus ever become independent ? 

 It took years before they could procure the most neces- 

 sary articles for' themselves. 



My old friend acknowledged the truth of the picture, 

 and my journey was settled for the morrow. 



My store of bears' fat and skins was not so large but 

 that I could pack it on one horse, for the greater 

 part of the skins, which had been exposed to the wet 

 weather, were spoiled. The skins were made up into 

 two bundles, one on each side of the horse, while a deer- 

 skin sack, containing about eight gallons of bears' fat, 

 lay across the pommel. One of Conwell's sons, who 



