stock demands regular attention, and must be fed morning and night. The
great barn filled with grain had to be threshed, for the cattle needed
the straw, and the grain had to be got out for the market. So day after
day he and his men hammered away with the flail, or spread the sheaves
on the barn floor to be trampled out by horses. Threshing machines were
unknown then, as were all the labour-saving machines now so extensively
used by the farmer. His muscular arm was the only machine he then had to
rely upon, and if it did not accomplish much, it succeeded in doing its
work well, and in providing him with all his modest wants. Then the
fanning mill came into play to clean the grain, after which it was
carried to the granary, whence again it was taken either to the mill or
to market. Winter was also the time to get out the logs from the woods,
and to haul them to the mill to be sawed in the spring--we always had a
use for boards. These saw mills, built on sap-streams, which ran dry as
soon as the spring freshets were over, were like the cider mills, small
rough structures. They had but one upright saw, which, owing to its
primitive construction, did not move as now, with lightning rapidity,
nor did it turn out a very large quantity of stuff. It answered the
purpose of the day, however, and that was all that was required or
expected of it. Rails, also, had to be split and drawn to where new
fences were wanted, or where old ones needed repairs. There were flour,
beef, mutton, butter, apples, and a score more of things to be taken to
market and disposed of. But, notwithstanding all this, the winter was a
good, joyful time for the farmer--a time, moreover, when the social
requisites of his nature received the most attention. Often the horses
would be put to the sleigh, and we would set off, well bundled up, to
visit some friends a few miles distant, or, as frequently happened, to
visit an uncle or an aunt, far away in the new settlements. The roads
often wound along for miles through the forest, and it was great fun for
us youngsters to be dashing along behind a spirited team, now around the