Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

21 ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
taking up arms in war. Brother Easter could not see the
question in that way, and so it was agreed that they would
debate the question in the Society Hall. Brother Easter
brought forward very convincing arguments, and came as near
proving his points as anyone with whom father had ever dis-
cussed: so said our father himself.
A new student for the ministry had been brought from
Minnesota back to Ohio by Emerson Vandervort that fall.
He was bright, good looking, and ambitious, and went to his
books with a positive hunger to know. My parents welcomed
him cordially; his name was Alvah Frost. Many times in
after years he has spoken of the greeting of mother and father
and how it warmed his wistful heart. He helped us prepare
to leave Blinko Shades. It had been decided that the farm
needed the attention of our parents, as the tenant had not
proven satisfactory. Our last days on the banks of Blinko
were spent in packing, with all its attendant cares; I remember
the burdened look of our dear father and mother. It was
decided that Mr. Frost should take the horse and rockaway
carriage and proceed to our old home in Hamilton County,
while we should go by train from Hillsboro to Cincinnati,
where we were to be met by an old neighbor and taken out to
Walnut Tree Farm. At the hotel in Hillsboro we invited Miss
Ship to dine with us, and bade that lovely girl good-by, never
to meet her again. This was in April, 1861; the spring was
late and the wind quite cold, and oh, how dismantled and
cheerless everything about our old home looked as we drove
up in front of the place! Father had only restored the back
part of the house, expecting to put on a front later; the tenant
had already moved, and we entered to find the rooms bare
and empty. We had bought bread and a lot of groceries in
the city, but we did not have them with us; they were on the
road, and how different it all seemed from many another
home-coming in the days that were never to return. As soon
as our neighbors heard of our arrival the nearest ones, James
Cummings and family, came in to invite us over to their house,
and this invitation we gladly accepted.
Almost the first thing father did was to hunt up a cow,