ry simple plaster which she prepared
herself. But I was forced into complete inactivity for more than three
months, during which time I was entirely helpless, and had to be washed,
dressed, and fed like an infant. But, as to me, the old proverb has
always proved true: "When things are at the worst they'll mend." There
were men and women in my accidental home who willingly tended to me in
my trouble. May God bless them for it! In the latter part of March, Mr.
Anderson, who had always treated me with the greatest kindness, quite
unexpectedly told me that I was now able to work again and could try to
get a place with some other family in the neighborhood, because he could
not keep me any longer.

Our nearest neighbor was a genuine Yankee, Daniel Dustin by name. He was
very rich, well read, liberal minded, respectable and honest, but so
_close_ that he would scarcely let his own family have enough food to
eat, and his wife was even more stingy. Mr. Dustin agreed to let me work
for my board until spring, and then he would give me five dollars a
month, which offer I cheerfully accepted. He immediately took me out
into the woods to chop wood for the summer, and he was to haul it home.
The new, tender muscles and nails on my fingers made wood chopping very
painful to me, and I could feel every blow of the axe through my entire
body. Never has any man worked so hard for me, when I afterwards hired
help for good wages, as I worked for my board here; and, by the way,
this board consisted chiefly of potatoes and corn meal cake. When the
spring work commenced I got five dollars a month, and had to get up at
five o'clock in the morning to do the chores, and then work in the field
from seven in the morning until dark.

In the beginning of June I got a letter from my parents, stating that my
father and brother were going to leave for New York immediately, and
they asked me to meet them there and go West with them. I had never
complained in my letters to my parents, but, on the other hand, I had
not advised them to come to America, either. They had been advised to do
so by some of my fellow-passengers on the "Ambrosius," who went to
Illinois, and were highly pleased with their prospects. So I went to
Boston again. My father's voyage had been delayed, and I had to wait for
him over a month, during which time I got sick, and would have been in a
sorry plight, indeed, if it had not been for my friend Eustrom, who now
felt like a rich man,