"Why, of my day's work, and this blacksmithing. Don't you think I'd better fling the stone into the river and give it up? All I have done this blessed day, besides taking care of the cattle, is to mend that staple—a thing John Drew would have done in fifteen minutes."
"No, he wouldn't, for if he had no better tools than you, he wouldn't have thought he could do it at all. I think it is the best day's work you ever did in your life."
"O, Susan, how do you make that out? You just say that because you know I feel a little down in the mouth; not because you really think so."
"Yes, husband, I really think so; and you will, if you look at it right. You must expect to creep before you can walk. You couldn't have got along without that chain, and would have been obliged to travel twenty-two miles through the woods on snow-shoes, with that chain on your back, in order to get it mended, and a half bushel of corn besides on your shoulder to pay John Drew for doing it; for we've got no money. It would have been the same with the staple. You couldn't have worked your oxen without it, and would have been forced to leave your work in fair weather, for you could not have gone in a storm. Now, you have done it yourself, in stormy days, when you couldn't have done much else, saved your corn, yourself all that travel, and, more than that, found out that you can work iron whenever you can get the tools to do it with."
"I don't know but you are right, wife; but how am I to get either the tools or the iron without money? I can't barter corn for iron, and John Drew has so much produce brought to him now that he is loath to take any more; says his house is full of corn, grain, meat, potatoes, and cloth, butter and eggs, and he can't get money enough to pay his taxes."
"I think there will be some way provided. We had nothing when we came here but the clothes on our backs and twenty dollars in money; had to run in debt for our land. Now we've nearly paid for the land, we cut hay, keep quite a stock of cattle and sheep, have but seldom been put to it for bread, and have a warm, comfortable house, if it is a log one, and the children are warm clothed."
"You always look on the bright side, Sue."
"I think that's the best side to look on."
We would inform our readers that the house Sue thought so comfortable was built of rough logs, the crevices stuffed with moss and clay, had but two rooms in it, the partition between them being blankets hung up. The fireplace and oven were built of rough stones, and the chimney of sticks of wood laid in clay (to prevent their taking fire from sparks), that, as it fell off, was renewed from time to time.
"I could buy tools with the money I shall get for logs that I cut this winter, didn't I want every cent of it to turn in towards paying for the land. I'm half a mind to take a little. If I only had a hammer, a punch, something to cut iron with, and a pair of tongs to hold it, I could mend my own chains and other things, save something, be learning all the time, and, after we pay for the land, I could get more tools."