dear as my aunt and
uncle. I decided to give all my life and strength to the saving of the
farm. I would still try to be great, but not as great as the Senator.
Purvis stayed with us through the summer and fall.

After the crops were in we cut and burned great heaps of timber and made
black salts of the ashes by leaching water through them and boiling down
the lye. We could sell the salts at three dollars and a half a hundred
pounds. The three of us working with a team could produce from one
hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty pounds a week. Yet we
thought it paid--there in Lickitysplit. All over the hills men and women
were turning their efforts and strength into these slender streams of
money forever flowing toward the mortgagee.

Mr. Dunkelberg had seen Benjamin Grimshaw and got him to give us a brief
extension. They had let me stay out of school to work. I was nearly
thirteen years old and rather strong and capable. I think that I got
along in my books about as well as I could have done in our little
school.

One day in December of that year, I had my first trial in the full
responsibility of man's work. I was allowed to load and harness and
hitch up and go to mill without assistance. My uncle and Purvis were
busy with the chopping and we were out of flour and meal. It took a lot
of them to keep the axes going. So I filled two sacks with corn and two
with wheat and put them into the box wagon, for the ground was bare, and
hitched up my horses and set out. Aunt Deel took a careful look at the
main hitches and gave me many a caution before I drove away. She said it
was a shame that I had to be "Grimshawed" into a man's work at my age.
But I was elated by my feeling of responsibility. I knew how to handle
horses and had driven at the drag and plow and once, alone, to the
post-office, but this was my first long trip without company. I had
taken my ax and a chain, for one found a tree in the road now and then
those days, and had to trim and cut and haul it aside. It was a drive of
six miles to the nearest mill, over a bad road. I sat on two cleated
boards placed across the box, with a blanket over me and my new overcoat
and mittens on, and was very comfortable and happy.

I had taken a little of my uncle's chewing tobacco out of its paper that
lay on a shelf in the cellarway, for I had observed that my uncle
generally chewed when he was riding. I tried a little of it and was very
sick for a few minutes.

H