"When we got to the front door, we asked, 'Who are you?'
"The man replied, 'A friend; open quickly.' So the door was opened; and who should it be but our honest gondola-man, with a letter, a bushel of salt, a jug of molasses, a bag of rice, some tea, coffee, and sugar, and some cloth for a coat for my poor boys; all sent by my kind sisters!
"How did our hearts and eyes overflow with love to them, and thanks to our Heavenly Father for such seasonable supplies! May we never forget it! Being now so rich, we thought it our duty to hand out a little to the poor around us, who were mourning for want of salt; so we divided the bushel, and gave a pint to every poor person who came for it—having abundance left for our own use. Indeed, it seemed to us as if our little store was increased by distribution, like the bread broken by our Saviour to the multitude."
NOBLE EXAMPLE OF PIONEERS.
In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
Gay.
Count life by virtues—these will last
When life's lame-footed race is o'er.
Mrs. Hale.
In the year 1843, the Hon. Samuel Wilkeson, of Buffalo—since deceased—communicated to the American Pioneer, a series of papers entitled "Early Recollections of the West." They present a graphic, yet painful picture of the perils, hardships and sufferings attendant on back-woods life in the midst of the aboriginal foresters. His father's family was one of twenty that removed from Carlisle and the adjacent towns, to the western part of Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1784. He pays the following tribute to the industry, perseverance and pious efforts of the mothers of the band:
The labor of all the settlers was greatly interrupted by the Indian war. Although the older settlers had some sheep, yet their increase was slow, as the country abounded in wolves. It was therefore the work of time to secure a supply of wool. Deerskin was a substitute for cloth for men and boys, but not for women and girls, although they were sometimes compelled to resort to it. The women spun, and generally wove all the cloth for their families, and when the wife was feeble, and had a large family, her utmost efforts could not enable her to provide them with anything like comfortable clothing. The wonder is, and I shall never cease to wonder, that they did not sink under their burthens. Their patient endurance of these accumulated hardships did not arise from a slavish servility, or insensibility to their rights and comforts. They justly appreciated their situation, and nobly encountered the difficulties which could not be avoided.