I left home in December, 1830. In those days
farmers' boys did not enjoy the luxury of shoes in the summer, nor
indeed in the autumn season. More than once I picked chestnuts bare-
footed and often I have tended the oxen in the mowing field frosty
mornings and warmed my feet by standing on a stone.

Once only during my home life did I go to Boston with my father. He
carried poultry in a one-horse wagon. I accompanied him. The year may
have been 1828, or '9 or '30. On our way he stopped at one of the
Waltham cotton factories to see a niece of my father who was there at
work. We lodged that night at the house of Madam Coffin. She was then
already old in my sight. She seemed pleased with my father's visit,
and the impression left upon my mind is that we were entertained with
marked consideration. My father had managed her farm for about five
years from 1809 to 1814, when he volunteered for service in the army,
and for ninety days he was on the island then known as Fort Warren.

The next morning we reached Boston and stationed our wagon at the
northwest corner of Quincy Market, where we sold our poultry. During
the day my father had occasion to go to the store of Joseph Mead, at
the corner of Lyman Place, and I was left in charge of the wagon. I
had the fortune to sell some of the poultry. My father thought that
the proceeds in money did not equal the decrease in stock, and so it
proved--for the next Sunday morning when I dressed for meeting I found
a two dollar bill in my trousers' pocket.

That night we spent with Captain Hyde, at Newton Corner. During the
first year of my father's married life he had carried on a farm on the
opposite side of the highway, and it was from Captain Hyde that he
obtained his knowledge of budding and grafting, and some knowledge of
the art of gardening. They always continued friends; Captain Hyde came
to my father's, in after years, and supplied our farm with the best
varieties of cherry, peach and apple trees.

The day following we went to Brighton where my father purchased the
remnant of a drove of cattle that had been driven from the State of
Maine--twenty-four in number. Of these nine were oxen and the rest
were young animals between two and four years of age, and all were
bought for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars. My father was
then the overseer of the almshouse, and the purchase was primarily for
that establishment, but some of the animals were sold to the