ll, and
cooeperation of our forbears.

To show the struggle and hard work willingly done for a home, let me
give the statement in 1870 of a respected citizen, the historian of
Norridgewock, Maine, when he was over ninety years old. He served an
apprenticeship of eight years till he was twenty-one, then bought on
credit a tract of fifty acres in the primeval woods. On eight acres he
felled the trees and left them through the winter. In April, 1801, he
spent three weeks in burning off the logs and clearing as well as
possible by handwork three acres. These he sowed with wheat and rye,
buying the seed on credit. He hired a yoke of oxen for one day and did
what harrowing he could in that short time, grubbing around the stumps
with a hoe for two more days. The crop grew, as did all others on
similar soil, amazingly. The two bushels of seed-wheat yielded fifty-two
bushels, the bushel of rye thirty bushels. On his other five acres among
the fallen trees he planted corn, and raised a hundred and twenty-eight
bushels. He adds:--

"When I could leave my work on my new land I worked out haying and
other work. I made shoes in the Fall, taught school in the Winter,
paid for my board and some clothing, but husbanded my resources to
pay for my land. At the end of the year found myself worth two
hundred dollars. I continued to clear up four acres each year till
I had cleared the fifty acres, planted an orchard and erected
suitable farm buildings and fences."

Six years later he married and prospered. In eleven years he was worth
two thousand dollars; he filled, during his long life, many, positions
of trust and of profit, and did many and varied good deeds; he continued
in active life till he was ninety years old. At his death he left a
considerable fortune. It is an interesting picture of the value of
honorable economy and thrift; a typical New England picture, with a
certain vigor and stimulus about it that makes it pleasing.

A "raising" might be of a church or a school-house, or of a house or
barn for a neighbor. All the strong men far and near turned out to help,
tools were lent, and many strong hands and arms made quick work. Often
the frame of a whole side of a house--the broadside--was fastened
together on the ground. After it was laid out and pinned together,
shores of long poles were attached to the plates with ox-chains, and it
was literally lifted into place by the united strength of t