It was some time after this before I made another lucky shot. Father
would once in a while ask me:--"Well can't you kill us another deer?" I
told him that when I had crawled a long time toward a sleeping deer,
that I got so trembly that I could not hit an ox in short range. "O,"
said he, "You get the buck fever--don't be so timid--they won't attack
you." But after awhile this fever wore off, and I got so steady that I
could hit anything I could get in reach of.
We were now quite contented and happy. Father could plainly show us the
difference between this country and Vermont and the advantages we had
here. There the land was poor and stony and the winters terribly severe.
Here there were no stones to plow over, and the land was otherwise easy
to till. We could raise almost anything, and have nice wheat bread to
eat, far superior to the "Rye-and-Indian" we used to have. The nice
white bread was good enough to eat without butter, and in comparison
this country seemed a real paradise.
The supply of clothing we brought with us had lasted until now--more
than two years--and we had sowed some flax and raised sheep so that we
began to get material of our own raising, from which to manufacture some
more. Mother and sister spun some nice yarn, both woolen and linen, and
father had a loom made on which mother wove it up into cloth, and we
were soon dressed up in bran new clothes again. Domestic economy of this
kind was as necessary here as it was in Vermont, and we knew well how to
practice it.
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