en she found herself the mistress of
this little house in the woods. Great-grandmother Avery lived with
them later. She had a petulant disposition. One day when reproved for
something, she went off and hid herself in the bushes and sulked--a
family trait; I'm a little that way, I guess.

Grandfather Burroughs was religious,--an Old-School Baptist,--a
thoughtful, quiet, exemplary man who read his Bible much. He was of
spare build, serious, thrifty after the manner of pioneers, and a kind
husband and father. He died, probably of apoplexy, when I was four years
old. I can dimly remember him. He was about seventy-two.

Grandmother Burroughs had sandy hair and a freckled face, and from her
my father and his sister Abby got their red hair. From this source I
doubtless get some of my Celtic blood. Grand-mother Burroughs had nine
children; the earliest ones died in infancy; their graves are on
the hill in the old burying-ground. Two boys and five girls
survived--Phoebe, Betsy, Mary, Abby, Olly, Chauncey (my father), and
Hiram.

I do not remember Grandmother at all. She died, I think, in 1838, of
consumption; she was in the seventies. Father said her last words were,
"Chauncey, I have but a little while to live." Her daughter Oily and
also my sister Oily died of consumption. Grandmother used to work with
Grandfather in the fields, and help make sugar. I have heard them tell
how in 1812 they raised wheat which sold for $2.50 a bushel--a great
thing.

Father told me of his uncle, Chauncey Avery, brother of Grandmother
Burroughs, who, with his wife and seven children, was drowned near
Shandaken, by a flood in the Esopus Creek, in April, 1814, or 1816. The
creek rose rapidly in the night; retreat was cut off in the morning.
They got on the roof and held family prayers. Uncle Chauncey tried to
fell a tree and make a bridge, but the water drove him away. The house
was finally carried away with most of the family in it. The father
swam to a stump with one boy on his back and stood there till the water
carried away the stump, then tried to swim with the boy for shore, but
the driftwood soon engulfed him and all was over. Two of the bodies were
never found. Their bones doubtless rest somewhere in the still waters of
the lower Esopus.

(Here follow details concerning one paternal and one maternal aunt,
which, though picturesque, would better be omitted. It is to be noted,
however, that in this simple homely narrative of his ancest