the narrow, crooked, muddy lane, where horses and wagons had struggled
through the knee-deep, and often hub-deep sticky clay, had become a
firm and fairly straight highway.

My house in the tree on the hilltop, where I had often rehearsed my
orations and sermons in such stentorian tones that the amazed cows
lifted their tails on high and took to their heels, welcomed me back
embowered in leafy new-grown branches.

My second brother, realizing that as "unto the bow the cord is, as
unto the child the mother, so unto man the woman is--useless one
without the other," had taken unto himself a good wife, the daughter
of the deacon, our next neighbor. My mother thus had a much needed
helper, as their farms, like their owners, were joined in wedlock.

[Illustration: I Rehearsed My Orations with Startling Effect.]

The worthy deacon and my deeply religious father alternately led the
family devotions, and peace and comfort prevailed. The mowing machine,
horse-hoe, corn-planter and power-rake dispensed with the drudgery of
the scythe and back-breaking hand tools. A protective tariff had set
the mill wheels rolling in the neighboring cities, thus furnishing
excellent markets for all the products of the farm. The sky-scraping
shoe manufactories, where men, like automatons, delved night and day
for a few weeks and then leaving them to semi-starvation for the rest
of the year, had not yet arrived.

One of my brothers had, like most of the farmers of that day, his
little shop where in winter he coined a few hundred dollars
making boots and shoes, and where I earned many precious pennies,