the chopping was over. That done, we fired the rows, filling the deep of heaven with smoke, as it seemed to me, and lighting the night with great billows of flame.
By mid-autumn we had cleared to the stumps a strip half down the valley from our door. Then we turned to on the land of our neighbors, my time counting half, for I was sturdy and could swing the axe to a line, and felt a joy in seeing the chips fly. But my father kept an eye on me, and held me back as with a leash,
My mother was often sorely tried for the lack of things common as dirt these better days. Frequently our only baking-powder was white lye, made by dropping ash-cinders into wafer. Our cinders were made by letting the sap of green timber drip into hot ashes. Often deer's tallow, bear's grease, or raccoon's oil served for shortening, and the leaves of the wild raspberry for tea. Our neighbors went to mill at Canton—a journey of five days, going and coming, with an ox-team, and beset with many difficulties. Then one of them hollowed the top of a stump for his mortar and tied his pestle to the bough of a tree. With a rope he drew the
