We had to get accustomed to the low ceilings, only seven feet high; but this did not distress us, though in our parlor, a room twenty-eight feet long, the effect was always peculiar.
The grounds around the house were not laid out. It was simply a case of a house set on a little elevation, in the center of a rather rough lawn, and without a path or a flower-bed, no shrubs and but few trees.
I hired a man with plow and horse for a day or two and we made a path from the piazza to the road, set out an arbor-vitae hedge, made two or three small flower-beds, and had the kitchen-garden ploughed.
The man planted the potatoes and corn in a field next the garden, but the kitchen garden was my hobby, and with all the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy I took personal possession of it.
About an acre in extent, fenced and almost entirely free from even small stones, the soil was rich and productive. I met with wonderful success, and the crops that I raised, in their earliness and size, astonished the natives.
Every pleasant morning I was up at five o'clock, and after a bowl of crackers and milk, worked for two or three hours. Then a bath, followed by breakfast, and after a day in town, which, owing to dull business, I made very short, I was back in the afternoon at work again.
How I did enjoy those days.
In the early stages my wife used to laugh at me for digging up the seed to see if it had sprouted, so impatient was I to see the growing plants.
We had an ice-house, filled for us by the owner without charge, and in melon season I picked the melons in the morning and left them in the ice-house all day.
My mouth waters at the thought of those delicious melons.