^he Ploughboy 



were naturally proud of their farms and tried 

 to keep them as neat and clean and well-tilled 

 as gardens. To accomplish this without the 

 means for hiring help was impossible. Flowers 

 were planted about the neatly kept log or frame 

 houses; barnyards, granaries, etc., were kept 

 in about as neat order as the homes, and the 

 fences and corn-rows were rigidly straight. But 

 every uncut weed distressed them; so also did 

 every ungathered ear of grain, and all that was 

 lost by birds and gophers; and this overcare- 

 fulness bred endless work and worry. 



As for money, for many a year there was 

 precious little of it in the country for anybody. 

 Eggs sold at six cents a dozen in trade, and five- 

 cent calico was exchanged at twenty-five cents 

 a yard. Wheat brought fifty cents a bushel in 

 trade. To get cash for it before the Portage 

 Railway was built, it had to be hauled to Mil- 

 waukee, a hundred miles away. On the other 

 hand, food was abundant, — eggs, chickens, 

 pigs, cattle, wheat, com, potatoes, garden 

 vegetables of the best, and wonderful melons 

 [ 225 ] 



