live in and commenced building a house. They did not have to go far for
timber--it was standing all around the site chosen for the house.
"They built a very nice log house, 15 ft. by 18 ft. Their greatest
trouble in building was, the stones were so frosty they could not split
them. They had to kindle a huge fire of brushwood and warm the stones
through, when they split finely.
"After they had built the house they returned home, having been absent
about three weeks.
"My father and mother then moved to their new home, and father began to
build a saw mill and grist mill.
"Their nearest neighbors were one and a half miles distant, unless we
count the bears and foxes, and they were far too sociable for anything
like comfort. Sheep and cattle had to be folded every night for some
years.
"After father had built his grist mill he used to keep quite a number
of hogs. In the fall of the year, when the beechnuts began to drop, the
men used to drive them into the woods, where they would live and grow
fat on the nuts. One evening when my mother was returning from a visit
to one of the neighbors she heard a terrible squealing in the woods.
She at once suspected that bruin designed to dine off one of the hogs.
She hastened home to summon the men to the rescue, but darkness coming
on they had to give up the chase. However, bruin did not get any pork
that night; the music was too much for him, and piggie escaped with
some bad scratches.
"A short time after this, ominous squeaks were heard from the woods.
The men armed themselves with pitchforks and ran to the rescue. What
should they meet but one of my uncles coming with an ox-cart. The
wooden axles had got very dry on the long, rough road, and as they
neared my father's the sound as the wheels turned resembled very
closely that made by a hog under the paws of bruin.