M'Dougal and the Indian

Several years previous to the Revolution a Scotchman and his wife,
named M'Dougal, emigrated to America. Having but very little money, he
purchased land where it was then sold for almost nothing, in a country
thinly peopled, and on the extreme verge of civilization.

His first care was to construct a house and clear away some of the
trees around it This done, he spent his whole time, early and late, in
making a garden and cultivating a few fields. By unwearied industry
and with the occasional help of older settlers, he by degrees acquired
a stock of cattle, sheep, and pigs, and was in a rough way, possessed
of a comfortable independence. His greatest discomforts were, distance
from his neighbors, the church, market, and even the mill; but, above
all, the complete separation from his friends; and this he would have
felt still more had he been an idle man.

One day, Farmer M'Dougal, having a quantity of corn to grind, knowing
that the distance was considerable, and the road none of the
smoothest, set out in the morning at sunrise, hoping he should reach
home again before dark.

When the farmer was at home he always drove up the cows for his wife
to milk, morning and evening; but now this care devolved on her, and
the careful woman went out in quest of them. Not accustomed to go far
from the house, she found herself in an unknown country, and, with
neither pocket compass nor notched trees to guide, it is not to be
wondered that she wandered long and wearily to very little purpose.
Tall trees seemed to encompass her on every side, or where the view