d turnips, with plate and case knife, and he could
slice them up or scrape them as he chose.

The woods abounded in wild fruits, which the women made the most of for
the winter season. Berries, grapes, plums, and crab apples were all
utilized. The latter were especially delicious for preserves. The boy
who ate them raw off the tree could not get his face back into line the
same day; but he would eat them. However, pumpkins were our main
reliance for present and future pies and sauce; such pumpkins do not
grow now in these latter days. There were two sugar bushes on our place,
and a good supply of maple sugar was put up every spring. Many other
dainties were added to our regular menu, and a boy with such a cook for
a mother as I had, needed no sympathy from any one the whole world
round.

The river was three hundred feet wide opposite our house, and about two
feet deep, so teams could be driven across at ordinary stages, but foot
passengers depended on our boat, a large "dugout." I remember how
beautiful it was, when first scooped out from a huge basswood log,
clean, white, and sweet-smelling. Strangers and neighbors alike would
call across, "Bring over the boat;" and if they were going from our side
they would take it over and leave the job of hollering to us. At five
years of age I could pole it around very nicely.

One day, when I was first trusted to go in the boat alone, a stranger
called over, and as my father was busy, he told me to go after him. The
man expressed much wonderment, and some hesitancy to trusting himself to
the skill and strength of a bare-footed boy of five; but I assured him I
was a veteran at the business. He finally got in very gingerly, and sat
down flat on the bottom. All the way over he kept wondering at and
praising my work until I was ready to melt with mingled embarrassment
and delight. At the shore he asked me unctuously how much he should pay.
"Oh, nothing," I said. "But let me pay you. I'd be glad to," said he.
"Oh, no, we never take pay," I replied, and dug my toes into the sand,
not knowing how to get out of the scrape, yet well pleased at his high
estimate of my service. All the time he was plunging down first into one
pocket of his barn-door trousers and then the other, till at last he
fished out an old "bungtown" cent, which with much graciousness and
pomposity he pressed upon me, until my feeble refusals were overcome. I
took the coin and scampered away so fast that I must have