these troughs full of sap and empty
the sap into buckets, but we did it successfully, and afterward built
fires and boiled it down. By this time we had also cleared some of our
ground, and during the spring we were able to plow, dividing the work in
a way that seemed fair to us both. These were strenuous occupations for
a boy of nine and a girl of thirteen, but, though we were not
inordinately good children, we never complained; we found them very
satisfactory substitutes for more normal bucolic joys. Inevitably, we
had our little tragedies. Our cow died, and for an entire winter we went
without milk. Our coffee soon gave out, and as a substitute we made and
used a mixture of browned peas and burnt rye. In the winter we were
always cold, and the water problem, until we had built our well, was
ever with us.

When I was fifteen years old I was offered a situation as
school-teacher. By this time the community was growing around us with
the rapidity characteristic of these Western settlements, and we had
nearer neighbors whose children needed instruction. I passed an
examination before a school-board consisting of three nervous and
self-conscious men whose certificate I still hold, and I at once began
my professional career on the modest salary of two dollars a week and my
board. The school was four miles from my home, so I "boarded round" with
the families of my pupils, staying two weeks in each place, and often
walking from three to six miles a day to and from my little log
school-house in every kind of weather. During the first year I had about
fourteen pupils, of varying ages, sizes, and temperaments, and there
was hardly a book in the schoolroom except those I owned. One little
girl, I remembered, read from an almanac, while a second used a
hymn-book.

In winter the school-house was heated by a wood-stove to which the
teacher had to give close personal attention. I could not depend on my
pupils to make the fires or carry in the fuel; and it was often
necessary to fetch the wood myself, sometimes for long distances through
the forest. Again and again, after miles of walking through winter
storms, I reached the school-house with my clothing wet through, and in
these soaked garments I taught during the day. In "boarding round" I
often found myself in one-room cabins, with bunks at the end and the
sole partition a sheet or a blanket, behind which I slept with one or
two of the children. It was the custom on these occasi