wagon on time, with straw between the firkins so they would not rub. How
many times I have heard those loads start off over the frozen ground in
the morning before it was light! Sometimes a neighbour's wagon would go
slowly jolting by just after or just before Father had started, but on
the same errand. Father usually took a bag of oats for his horses and a
box of food for himself so as to avoid all needless expenses. The first
night would usually find him in Steel's tavern in Greene County, half
way to Catskill. The next afternoon would find him at his journey's end
and by night unloaded at the steamboat wharf, his groceries and other
purchases made, and ready for an early start homeward in the morning. On
the fourth night we would be on the lookout for his return. Mother would
be sitting, sewing by the light of her tallow dip, with one ear bent
toward the road. She usually caught the sound of his wagon first. "There
comes your father," she would say, and Hiram or Wilson would quickly get
and light the old tin lantern and stand ready on the stonework to
receive him and help put out the team. By the time he was in the house
his supper would be on the table--a cold pork stew, I remember, used to
delight him on such occasions, and a cup of green tea. After supper his
pipe, and the story of his trip told, with a list of family purchases,
and then to bed. In a few days the second trip would be made. As his
boys grew old enough he gave each of them in turn a trip with him to
Catskill. It was a great event in the life of each of us. When it came
my turn I was probably eleven or twelve years old and the coming event
loomed big on my horizon. I was actually to see my first steamboat, the
Hudson River, and maybe the steam cars. For several days in advance I
hunted the woods for game to stock the provision box so as to keep down
the expense. I killed my first partridge and probably a wild pigeon or
two and gray squirrels. Perched high on that springboard beside Father,
my feet hardly touching the tops of the firkins, at the rate of about
two miles an hour over rough roads in chilly November weather, I made my