he ground was
too closely connected with grave-digging. The staff of life, naturally
beautiful, oftentimes suggested the grave-digger's spade. Men and
boys, and in those days even women and girls, were cut down while
cutting the wheat. The fat folk grew lean and the lean leaner, while
the rosy cheeks brought from Scotland and other cool countries across
the sea faded to yellow like the wheat. We were all made slaves
through the vice of over-industry. The same was in great part true in
making hay to keep the cattle and horses through the long winters. We
were called in the morning at four o'clock and seldom got to bed
before nine, making a broiling, seething day seventeen hours long
loaded with heavy work, while I was only a small stunted boy; and a
few years later my brothers David and Daniel and my older sisters had
to endure about as much as I did. In the harvest dog-days and
dog-nights and dog-mornings, when we arose from our clammy beds, our
cotton shirts clung to our backs as wet with sweat as the
bathing-suits of swimmers, and remained so all the long, sweltering
days. In mowing and cradling, the most exhausting of all the farm
work, I made matters worse by foolish ambition in keeping ahead of the
hired men. Never a warning word was spoken of the dangers of
over-work. On the contrary, even when sick we were held to our tasks
as long as we could stand. Once in harvest-time I had the mumps and
was unable to swallow any food except milk, but this was not allowed
to make any difference, while I staggered with weakness and sometimes
fell headlong among the sheaves. Only once was I allowed to leave the
harvest-field--when I was stricken down with pneumonia. I lay gasping
for weeks, but the Scotch are hard to kill and I pulled through. No
physician was called, for father was an enthusiast, and always said
and believed that God and hard work were by far the best doctors.

None of our neighbors were so excessively industrious as father;
though nearly all of the Scotch, English, and Irish worked too hard,
trying to make good homes and to lay up money enough for comfortable
independence. Excepting small garden-patches, few of them had owned
land in the old country. Here their craving land-hunger was satisfied,
and they were naturally proud of their farms and tried to keep them
as neat and clean and well-tilled as gardens. To accomplish this
without the means for hiring help was impossible. Flowers were planted
about the nea