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example to all the world " and the rest of mankind." By all 

 means buy two grindstones. In fact, no good farmer can do 

 without them. He must have a Jersey pair, and as no good far- 

 mer ever did live without a set of carpenter's tools, he should 

 have a nice little fine-grit stone in his shop, for such tools espe- 

 cially, and if the farm stone is not situated convenient to the 

 kitchen, he should provide the women-folks with just such a snug 

 little affair as " the grindstone man" sent me, and which, now 

 that I know its convenience, I would not do without, It is won- 

 derful how any family can live without a grindstone. It can only 

 be accounted for by their ignorance of its use. Hence the abuse 

 of nature's good gifts — living without one. 



Don't imagine that I am a new convert to the revival move- 

 ment in favor of grindstones. No, sir ; my convictions date far 

 back In proof of this is the fact that when I moved the first 

 white family into that wilderness of woods and prairie that makes 

 up the north-west county of Indiana, about twenty-four years 

 ago, where I built a house to live in, without a single sawed board 

 about it, not even in the table I ate at, I was able to live very 

 comfortably and happy fifteen miles from neighbors. Do you ask 

 how ? I will tell you : I had a grindstone. Yes, Sir ; and my 

 neighbors used to come and use it. Think of that. To get up of 

 a cold morning and find a dull ax and no wood at the door, and 

 no grindstone within a dozen miles ! Such a man was almost as 

 badly off as another of my neighbors who got up one morning, 

 and although he found a sharp ax and plenty of wood, found that 

 the fire had gone out while he slept, leaving not a spark behind 

 nor a match or flint and steel and tinder in the house; and so he 

 had to walk six miles out to a neighbor's and six miles back, 

 before he could roast his venison for breakfast. 



After all, going a dozen miles for fire, or to grind an ax, in a 

 new country like that, is not half as bad as going a dozen rods in 

 an old settlement to borrow the use of a grindstone. 



To borrow ! a man may be tempted to borrow ; and so may a 

 man be tempted to steal. But why should you lend? Is 

 any man too poor to own a grindstone? One don't cost much ; 

 and here I hold in my hand an advertisement of a Connecticut 



