ey should go,
my father well knowing that however much my mother might wish to return,
when left to her to decide, her better judgment would say 'Not yet,' as
his improvements must all be a sacrifice. To sell his property was
impossible. My mother postponed the return for a few years, but could
not relinquish the hope of emerging from the woods, and being once more
within the sound of the church-going bell. My father's property was fast
improving. He had planted an orchard of apple, peach, and cherry trees,
which he procured from Dr. Proyer, whose young trees were a year or two
in advance of his own, and he had procured a few sheep which were
pastured in a field immediately in front of the house. But all their
watching could not preserve them from the wolves. If they escaped by the
greatest care for a year or two, and the flock increased to twenty or
thirty, some unlucky day they would find them reduced to ten or a dozen.

"A tree sometimes unobserved would fall across the fence, and the sheep
would stray into the woods, which was fatal to them; or, the fastening
to their pen would be left just one unlucky night not secured, and the
morning would show a melancholy remainder of the fine flock that had
been folded the night before. All of these mishaps were serious
vexations to the early settlers. The mill was a constant draw upon my
father's purse. A part of his lands had been sold at a very low price
(but not low at that time)--one dollar the acre--to assist in building
it, and now it had to be kept in repair. The dam breaking, machinery
getting out of order, improvements to be made, bolting cloths wanted,
and a miller to be paid--to meet all this was the toll, every twelfth
bushel that was ground. During the summer season the mill would be for
days without a bushel to grind, as farmers got their milling done when
they could take their grists to the mill on ox-sleds upon the snow. Few
grew more than sufficient for their own consumption and that of the
new-coming settler; but had they grown more, there was no market, and
the price of wheat, until the war of 1812, was never more than half a
dollar a bushel; maize, buckwheat, and rye, two shillings (York) a
bushel. The flour mill, pecuniarily speaking, was a great loss to my
father. The saw-mill was remunerative; the expense attending it was
trifling, its machinery was simple, and any commonly intelligent man
with a day or two's instruction could attend to it. People brough