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

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ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
over to romping and play, and when those who were working
for others gathered into the home Saturday night and sat
down to the feast my mother always had prepared for us, I
can think of no greater happiness than was enjoyed by our
large family as we sat about the table and related the ex-
periences of the week to each other.
"The country was still new, nearly half in forest, and we
boys spent Sundays in the woods with our dogs, of which we
always had two or three. We knew the habits of every wild
animal and bird, the name of every tree and flower and bush.
The enjoyment we had chasing rabbits and squirrels and
hunting 'coon trees and woodchucks was fun enough for any
boy, either then or now.
"There were no schools in our locality except for three
months in the winter; and if there was work to be done then,
which was generally true in our case, the children were kept
at home to do it. Thus it came about that when I was eighteen
years old I had not gone to school a year all together.
Even with such a haphazard schooling I could read, but I could
not write more than to sign my name in a very sprawling and
awkward manner. When I was fifteen my father's health
failed, so he could do nothing, and upon me, the youngest,
devolved the entire support of my parents. The other children
had either married and moved away or had drifted from home."
As I write these records of my brother-in-law I am the
more surprised at what he accomplished. At eighteen he was
practically without education, and when he came to us after
the war he was not twenty-four, and he had a manly bearing
and no appearance of any lack in education. His loyalty as
a son proved a good foundation for our sister to trust in a
husband. The way he went to work at eighteen to care
for his parents he has briefly narrated. "I found a log
cabin in which they could live rent free. We had a few
chickens, and I was working for sixteen dollars a month
and my board. I bought a cow and paid for her as I
could out of my wages, a little at a time. There was a little
garden spot in which my father and mother raised vegetables
for their table, and in this way I supported my parents for