^T. 3.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 5 



I was sent to the district school near by when three years 

 old ; and I either remember some of my performances 

 of that or the next year, or have been told them in 

 such way as to leave the matter doubtful.^ My earliest 



and died very soon after, in May, 1811, aged twenty-three. When 

 the child was horn, November 18, 1810, it was carried to him to 

 see, and he said he wished they would call it 'Asa, if it had had 

 no name as yet decided on. He was of a singularly sweet and gentle 

 character. The step-brothers were taken in turn to be taught and 

 trained. The hands employed on farm or in trade were generally 

 lodged and boarded. Often their clothes were mended or made. The 

 wheat and grain were home-raised, as were aU the vegetables. There 

 was little fresh meat, except when a sheep or beef was killed, and 

 that meant salting and curing. Butter and cheese were all home- 

 made, and could be taken to Albany for sale, as was also grain ; as 

 the farm grew, more cows were added. Then the clothing was home- 

 made. The wool for flannel sheets and underclothing and for the 

 men's clothes was home-spun, the nicer portions taken ofE and carded 

 separately, and spun as worsted for the children's and women's 

 dresses ; also the yam for socks for the whole family. A spinning- 

 girl was hired for part of the year, for flax was also spun for the 

 house linen and 'for wearing-apparel. The weaving was hired out. 

 The tailor came by the week to make up the clothing with the 

 mother's help, and after the tannery was given up, the shoe-maker 

 came at intervals to make the shoes. As the girls grew older they 

 took their share at the wool and flax wheels. It is said that the first 

 spinning of flax on the small wheel was introduced by the party of 

 Scotch-Irish emigrants of 1718 ; that the women gave lessons to the 

 women of Boston on Boston Common, and the fashion was so set for 

 that spinning. It is also said that the Irish potato was first introduced 

 into New England by these same colonists. 



A widowed sister came with her children to make her home under 

 the same roof when the Grays moved later to a larger farm, and 

 there seemed always some boy to be housed and taught and trained. 

 Though his aid might teU out of doors, the home care came upon the 

 mother. But Mrs. Gray was a woman of singularly quiet and gentle 

 character, with great strength and decision, and possessed a wonderful 

 power of accomplishing and turning oif work ; a woman of thoughtful, 

 earnest ways, conscientious and self-forgetting. 



The father was quick, decided, and an immense worker ; from him 

 the son took his lively movements and his quick eagerness of 

 character, perhaps also his ready appreciation of fun. 



^ His mother, having another child, was probably glad to have the 



