free labor, for while the first was compulsory, and, therefore, at the
best, perfunctory, the latter must be superior in order to create a
demand, and realizing this fully, mother and I expended the utmost
care in our respective callings, and were well rewarded for our
efforts.

By exercising rigid economy and much self-denial, we, at last,
accumulated sufficient to enable mother to start for Canada, and oh!
how rejoiced I was when that dear, overworked mother approached the
time, when her hard-earned and long-deferred holiday was about to
begin. The uses of adversity is a worn theme, and in it there is much
of weak cant, but when it is considered how much of sacrifice the
poverty-stricken must bear in order to procure the slightest
gratification, should it not impress the thinking mind with amazement,
how much of fortitude and patience the honest poor display in the
exercise of self-denial! Oh! ye prosperous! prate of the uses of
adversity as poetically as you please, we who are obliged to learn of
them by bitter experience would greatly prefer a change of
surroundings.

Mother arrived in Toronto two weeks after she left St. Louis, and
surprised my sister Nancy, in a pleasant home. She had married a
prosperous farmer, who owned the farm on which they lived, as well as
some property in the city near-by. Mother was indescribably happy in
finding her child so pleasantly situated, and took much pleasure with
her bright little grandchildren; and after a long visit, returned
home, although strongly urged to remain the rest of her life with
Nancy; but old people are like old trees, uproot them, and transplant
to other scenes, they droop and die, no matter how bright the
sunshine, or how balmy the breezes.