GLEAM. 15 



of us ; that is, we should have enough to eat and 

 wear, and could live as did our neighbors. But 

 father had often talked over with us his plans for 

 the future, — plans, as to his children, far different 

 from merely living on the farm from year to year, 

 with scarcely more culture than the oxen that 

 pulled our plow. For farming he had a strong lik- 

 ing. For the intelligent farmer he had a high 

 respect. But farmers who submitted to be tyran- 

 nized over by their acres, their crops, and their 

 stock ; farmers who cared little for the best education 

 for themselves and their children, roused in him a 

 manly indignation. He had sent me to Lansing to 

 attend the Agricultural College, expecting that I 

 would graduate there, then spend two years at 

 Harvard. Will was to have a similar course. He 

 hoped that we would, after our school education was 

 finished, choose farming for a profession. But in 

 this we were to be free to follow our own bent. 

 My sister Lucy was to go to Cornell when prepared 

 for college, and bring to his country home, when she 

 graduated, all the womanly grace and culture that 

 the schools can give. 



As I thought over, in the stillness of that lonesome 

 night, these plans and hopes which had been so 

 dear to my father, there seemed no chance of their 

 accomplishment in the case of Will and myself. 

 We must look after the farm, keep up the home for 



