Poor Hiram! One fall in his simplicity he took his fancy Cotswold
sheep to the State Fair at Syracuse, never dreaming but that a
farmer entirely outside of all the rings and cliques, and quite
unknown, could get the prize if his stock was the best. I can
see him now, hanging about the sheep-pens, homesick, insignificant,
unnoticed, living on cake and pie, and wondering why a prize label
was not put upon his sheep. Poor Hiram! Well, he marched up the
hill with his sheep, and then he marched down again, a sadder and,
I hope, a wiser man.

Once he ordered a fancy rifle, costing upwards of a hundred
dollars, of a gunsmith in Utica. When the rifle came, it did
not suit him, was not according to specifications; so he sent it
back. Not long after that the man failed and no rifle came, and
the money was not returned. Then Hiram concluded to make a journey
out there. I was at home at the time, and can see him yet as he
started off along the road that June day, off for Utica on foot.
Again he marched up the hill, and then marched down, and no rifle
or money ever came.

For years he had the Western fever, and kept his valise under his
bed packed ready for the trip. Once he actually started and got
as far as White Pigeon, Michigan. There his courage gave out, and
he came back. Still he kept his valise packed, but the end of his
life's journey came before he was ready to go West again.

Hiram, as you know, came to live with me at Slabsides during
the last years of his life. He had made a failure of it on the
old farm, after I had helped him purchase it; nearly everything