not, it would come better after a while.

My father was one of a class of young men not uncommon in those days,
who possessed energy and activity. He was bound to win. What the old
people gave was cheerfully accepted, and he went to work to acquire the
necessaries and comforts of life with his own hands. He chopped his way
into the stubborn wood and added field to field. The battle had now been
waged for seven or eight years; an addition had been made to the house;
other small comforts had been added, and the nucleus of future
competence fairly established.

One of my first recollections is in connection with the small log barn
he had built, and which up to that date had not been enlarged. He
carried me out one day in his arms, and put me in a barrel in the middle
of the floor. This was covered with loosened sheaves of wheat, which he
kept turning over with a wooden fork, while the oxen and horse were
driven round and round me. I did not know what it all meant then, but I
afterwards learned that he was threshing. This was one of the first rude
scenes in the drama of the early settlers' life to which I was
introduced, and in which I had to take a more practical part in after
years. I took part, also, very early in life, in sugar-making. The sap-
bush was not very far away from the house, and the sap-boiling was under
the direction of my mother, who mustered all the pots and kettles she
could command, and when they were properly suspended over the fire on
wooden hooks, she watched them, and rocked me in a sap-trough. Father's
work consisted in bringing in the sap with two pails, which were carried
by a wooden collar about three feet long, and made to fit the shoulder,
from each end of which were fastened two cords with hooks to receive the
bail of the pails, leaving the arms free except to steady them. He had
also to cut wood for the fire. I afterwards came to take a more active