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Updated: May 11, 2025
Sometimes he guided visitors to the top of the Peak or worked on the trail to its summit. He chopped wood, worked in the garden, hunted stray cattle or horses. Frequently he rode off with his Bible under his arm, for he was a circuit rider, carrying the gospel into the wilderness. He gave good, if free, advice, officiated at weddings and funerals, at barn-raisings and log-rollings.
The spring advanced rapidly while I was engaged on this work and as my crew occasionally took contracts in the country I have vivid pictures of the green and pleasant farm lands, of social farmers at barn-raisings, and of tables filled with fatness. I am walking again in my stocking feet, high on the "purline plate," beetle in hand, driving home the oaken "pins."
"They fight like cats and dogs when no one else is around" was the universal comment on a family whose members were very free of their terms of affection. We were a Spartan lot. We did not believe in letting our wives and children know that they were an important part of our contentment. Social changes were in progress. We held no more quilting bees or barn-raisings.
With them reaping was a game, husking corn a test of endurance and skill, threshing a "bee." It was a Dudley against a McClintock, a Gilfillan against a Garland, and my father's laughing descriptions of the barn-raisings, harvestings and railsplittings of the valley filled my mind with vivid pictures of manly deeds. Every phase of farm work was carried on by hand.
Woods, hills, running streams, the sawmill and the gristmill, the path across the meadow, the open road, the miracle of the seasons, the sugar-bush, the freshet that carried away the bridge, the first Spring flowers peeping from beneath the snow on the south side of rotting logs, the trees bursting into leaf, the hills white with blossoms of wild cherry and hawthorn, the Saturday afternoon when the boys could fish, the old swimming-hole, the bathing of the little ones in the creek, the growing crops in the bottom-land, bee-trees and wild honey, coon-hunts by moonlight, the tracks of deer down by the salt-lick, bears in the green corn, harvest-time, hog-killing days, frost upon the pumpkin and fodder in the shock, wild turkeys in the clearing, revival-meetings, spelling-bees, debates at the schoolhouse, school at the log schoolhouse in Stockbridge, barn-raisings, dances in the new barn, quilting-bees, steers to break, colts to ride, apple butter, soft soap, pickled pigs' feet, smoked hams, side-meat, shelled walnuts, coonskins on the barn-door, Winter and the first fall of snow, boots to grease, harness to mend, backlogs, hickory-nuts, cider, a few books and all the other wonderful and enchanting things that a country life, not too isolated, brings to the boys and girls born where the rain makes musical patter on the roof and the hand of a loving mother tucks you in at night!
New doors were hung and a new stove secured, and then came the painters to put a new coat of paint on the inside. The cold weather forbade repainting the outside. The sheds were rebuilt by men whose hearts glowed with old-time fire. It was like pioneer days, when "barn-raisings" and "bees" made life worth while in a wild, stern land.
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