I had not been three days at Mohawk-cottage before a pair of ragged children came to ask for medicine for a sick mother; and when it was given to them, the eldest produced a handful of cents, and desired to know what he was to pay.  The superfluous milk of our cow was sought after eagerly, but every new comer always proposed to pay for it.  When they found out that “the English old woman” did not sell anything, I am persuaded they by no means liked her the better for it; but they seemed to think, that if she were a fool it was no reason they should be so too, and accordingly the borrowing, as they called it, became very constant, but always in a form that shewed their dignity and freedom.  One woman sent to borrow a pound of cheese; another half a pound of coffee; and more than once an intimation accompanied the milk-jug, that the milk must be fresh, and unskimmed:  on one occasion the messenger refused milk, and said, “Mother only wanted a little cream for her coffee.”

I could never teach them to believe, during above a year that I lived at this house, that I would not sell the old clothes of the family; and so pertinacious were they in bargain-making, that often, when I had given them the articles which they wanted to purchase, they would say, “Well, I expect I shall have to do a turn of work for this; you may send for me when you want me.”  But as I never did ask for the turn of work, and as this formula was constantly repeated, I began to suspect that it was spoken solely to avoid uttering the most un-American phrase “I thank you.”

There was one man whose progress in wealth I watched with much interest and pleasure.  When I first became his neighbour, himself, his wife, and four children, were living in one room, with plenty of beef-steaks and onions for breakfast, dinner and supper, but with very few other comforts.  He was one of the finest men I ever saw, full of natural intelligence and activity of mind and body, but he could neither read nor write.  He drank but little whiskey, and but rarely chewed tobacco, and was therefore more free from that plague spot of spitting which rendered male colloquy so difficult to endure.  He worked for us frequently, and often used to walk into the drawing-room and seat himself on the sofa, and tell me all his plans.  He made an engagement with the proprietor of the wooded hill before mentioned, by which half the wood he could fell was to be his own.  His unwearied industry made this a profitable bargain, and from the proceeds he purchased the materials for building a comfortable frame (or wooden) house; he did the work almost entirely himself.  He then got a job for cutting rails, and, as he could cut twice as many in a day as any other man in the neighbourhood, he made a good thing of it.  He then let half his pretty house, which was admirably constructed, with an ample portico, that kept it always cool.  His next step was contracting for the building a wooden bridge, and when I left Mohawk he