y mind while I stopped
outside to look around after the rest had gone in. When they had lighted
one or two candles and I followed them in, the homesick feeling was
increased by the new prospect. My father had evidently left in a great
hurry for every dish in the house was piled dirty upon the table, and
they were all heavy yellow ware, the like of which I had never seen
before. The house had been closed so long that it was full of mice, and
they ran scurrying over everything.

But there was much work to do before we could get the place in order to
go to bed, and it fell to my lot to wash all those dishes, no small task
for an eleven year old girl.

In the morning, when the house was in order and the sun was shining in,
and we could see what father had done to make us comfortable, the place
took on a very different aspect and soon became another dear home.

He had made every piece of the furniture himself. The bed was made of
poles, with strips of bark in place of bedcords, the mattress was of
husks and the pillows of cat-tail down. There were three straight chairs
and a rocking chair with splint bottoms. The splints were made by
peeling small ash poles and then pounding them for some time with some
heavy instrument, when the wood would come off in thin layers. The floor
was of split logs. Father had made some good cupboards for the kitchen
things.

That first year mother was not well and young as I was, I was obliged to
do a great deal of housework. I did the washing and made salt-rising
bread. And one time I surprised the doctor who came to see mother by
making him a very good mustard poultice.

Mr. Frank G. O'Brien--1856.

The Reason I did not Graduate.

In the winter of 1856-57 I worked for my board at the home of "Bill"
Stevens, whose wife was a milliner--the shop, or store, was located a
short distance below where the Pillsbury mill stands, on Main Street.

My duty while there this particular winter, was to take care of the
house and chaperone Lola Stevens, the young daughter to the private
school which was called the "Academy"--the same being the stepping stone
to our great State University.

There were two departments up stairs and two below--hallway in the
center and stairs leading from this hallway to the upper rooms. I do not
recall who were the teachers in the primary department on the lower
floor, but I do remember those on the floor above. Miss Stanton (later
on the wife of D. S. B. Johnston)