accompany me over his farms again, and in his rounds he made it his
peculiar business to explain every part of the operations that were in
progress by the servants. He appeared to take quite as much delight in
cultivating my mind as he did in cultivating the soil, and no man knew
better than he did how to cultivate the soil and manage a farm in all its
branches. When there was any particular work to do, I always made a hand
in it, and my father never failed to take pains to shew me how to do it
well, and in the most scientific manner; always observing, that no man
could perform his work well unless he appeared to do it easily to himself.
Sowing time came, I learned to sow; haymaking time came, I learned to mow;
harvest came, I learned to reap; in fact, I learned not only to plough, to
sow, to reap, to mow, to pitch, to load, to make ricks, to thrash, and to
winnow, but I made it my study to excel in all these things; and in
recounting some of my feats of activity, strength, agility, and
perseverance in these matters, the reader will recollect that I am
recording them in the life time of numerous individuals, who were
eye-witnesses of these facts, and who worked side by side with me; and as
I know that this work is taken in, and read, not only by my old
school-fellows, but also by my old[8] work-fellows, they who peruse these
pages will take into their consideration, that I am not writing, neither
are they reading, a novel or a romance; that on the contrary, they are
perusing the real facts that have occurred within the knowledge and the
recollection of thousands.

After the labour of the day was over, and the servants had retired to
their homes to obtain their natural rest, to fit them for the toils of the
coming morn, my father used to read, alternately with myself, some useful
or entertaining book; and be frequently lamented that I appeared to give
up so much the study of my Latin books. I had all along spent a few hours,
twice or three times a week, in reading the Classics with the Rev. Mr.