t was so small that it only held a bed, a table,
a cook-stove and two or three chairs, and when the table was drawn out
for meals my wife had to set the rocking-chair on the bed, because there
wasn't room for it on the floor. She helped me on the farm the first
year or two. We moved here late in the spring, and I only had time to
get the sod broken before corn-planting time. My wife had a lame foot
that spring, but I made her a sort of crutch-stilt, and with this she
walked over the ground as I ploughed it, making holes in the earth by
means of it and dropping in the corn. She also rode the reaper when our
wheat was ripe the next year, and I followed, binding and stacking. She
has helped me in many other ways on the farm, for she is as ambitious as
I am to have a place free from debt which we can call our own. We added
these two other rooms in the third year, and when we are out of debt and
have money ahead we shall put up another addition: we shall need it as
the children grow up. I have a nice lot of small fruit--strawberries,
raspberries, currants, gooseberries--and besides these I sell every
spring a great many early vegetables. The small fruits pay me more to
the acre than anything else I could raise. There is a good market for
them in the neighboring towns, and I seldom have to hire any help. My
children do most of the picking."

It is only a bit of personal history, to be sure, but it affords an
insight into the life of one who, like many others in this State, began
with only his bare hands and habits of industry and economy for capital.

Another typical illustration is supplied by a man whose home we visited
in the winter. His comfortable farm-house was overflowing with the good
things of life: a piano and an organ stood in the parlor, and a
well-filled bookcase in the sitting-room; a large bay-window was bright
with flowering plants; and base-burner coal-stoves and double-paned
windows mocked at the efforts of the wintry winds and kept perpetual
summer within. In the large barn were farm-wagons, a carriage, a buggy,
a sleigh--a vehicle for every purpose. The farmer invited us one morning
to step into a large sled which stood at the door, and took us half a
mile to his stock-yards. There we saw fat, sleek cattle by the dozen and
fat hogs by the score, great cribs bursting with corn, a windmill pump
and other conveniences for watering stock. Besides all these possessions
this man owns two or three other good farm