only our summer home. During the trials and tribulations of that distant
winter I often recalled a remark which Lord Chesterfield is said to have
made to several persons whom he disliked: "I wish you were married and
settled in the country." It has even been asserted that, in his
absentmindedness and excitement incident to encountering an infuriated
cow, he addressed the beast with the same words. This was a favorite
anecdote of General Scott, and it appealed to me then as well as now, as
I regard country life a forlorn fate for all women excepting possibly
those who are endowed with large wealth with which to gratify every
passing whim.

The primitive life we led at _Po-ne-sang_ was full of annoyances and
discouragements. For example, we had no running water in our house and
were supposed to supply ourselves from a cistern in the yard which had
contracted the bad habit of running dry and for inconvenient periods
remaining so. We were therefore compelled to carry all our water from a
neighbor's spring at least a quarter of a mile away. We tried to remedy
this defect by boring an artesian well, but all our attempts were
unsuccessful. Country life was distasteful to cooks as they preferred to
live in a city where they could make and mingle with friends, and I soon
learned that if I wanted to keep a servant I must hire one who had a
baby, and that is just what I did. Although country life was distasteful
to her, too, she took her dose of medicine because she could not help
herself as no one else would employ her. Often these babies were a
source of great care to me, as their mothers would neglect
them--sometimes from ignorance but more frequently from sheer
indifference. I remember one cook whose baby, owing to the lack of
proper attention, was actually in danger of starving to death. She kept
it in a wooden box under a tree in the garden, and I was obliged at
stated intervals to see that the child was fed.

During our summers at _Po-ne-sang_ our servants made both hard and soft
soap in a large kettle which swung from an iron tripod in the yard. They
also made apple and peach butter, a German marmalade that was highly
regarded in that section of the country. The apples or peaches were
allowed to cook slowly all day in a kettle suspended from the tripod and
were stirred by wooden paddles, whose handles were long enough to enable
them to be worked at a convenient distance from the fire. In making this
marmalade, cider was