ods, the
sugar-making, the apple-gathering--all had a holiday character. But the
hoeing corn, and picking up potatoes, and cleaning the cow stables, had
little of this character. I have never been a cog in the wheel of any
great concern. I have never had to sink or lose my individuality. I have
been under no exacting master or tyrant.... I have never been a slave to
any bad habit, as smoking, drinking, over-feeding. I have had no social
or political ambitions; society has not curtailed my freedom or dictated
my dress or habits. Neither has any religious order or any clique.
I have had no axe to grind. I have gone with such men and women as
I liked, irrespective of any badge of wealth or reputation or social
prestige that they might wear. I have looked for simple pleasures
everywhere, and have found them. I have not sought for costly pleasures,
and do not want them--pleasures that cost money, or health, or time. The
great things, the precious things of my life, have been without money
and without price, as common as the air.

Life has laid no urgent mission upon me. My gait has been a leisurely
one. I am not bragging of it; I am only stating a fact. I have never
felt called upon to reform the world. I have doubtless been culpably
indifferent to its troubles and perplexities, and sins and sufferings.
I lend a hand occasionally here and there in my own neighborhood, but I
trouble myself very little about my neighbors--their salvation or their
damnation. I go my own way and do my own work.

I have loved nature, I have loved the animals, I have loved my
fellow-men. I have made my own whatever was fair and of good report. I
have loved the thoughts of the great thinkers and the poems of the great
poets, and the devout lines of the great religious souls. I have not
looked afar off for my joy and entertainment, but in things near at
hand, that all may have on equal terms. I have been a loving and dutiful
son, and a loving and dutiful father, and a good neighbor. I have got
much satisfaction out of life; it has been worth while.

I have not been a burden-bearer; for shame be it said, perhaps, when
there are so many burdens to be borne by some one. I have borne those
that came in my way, or that circumstances put upon me, and have at
least pulled my own weight. I have had my share of the holiday spirit;
I have had a social holiday, a moral holiday, a business holiday. I
have gone a-fishing while others were struggling and groani