Mr. Dunkelberg had seen Benjamin Grimshaw and got him to give us a brief extension.  They had let me stay out of school to work.  I was nearly thirteen years old and rather strong and capable.  I think that I got along in my books about as well as I could have done in our little school.

One day in December of that year, I had my first trial in the full responsibility of man’s work.  I was allowed to load and harness and hitch up and go to mill without assistance.  My uncle and Purvis were busy with the chopping and we were out of flour and meal.  It took a lot of them to keep the axes going.  So I filled two sacks with corn and two with wheat and put them into the box wagon, for the ground was bare, and hitched up my horses and set out.  Aunt Deel took a careful look at the main hitches and gave me many a caution before I drove away.  She said it was a shame that I had to be “Grimshawed” into a man’s work at my age.  But I was elated by my feeling of responsibility.  I knew how to handle horses and had driven at the drag and plow and once, alone, to the post-office, but this was my first long trip without company.  I had taken my ax and a chain, for one found a tree in the road now and then those days, and had to trim and cut and haul it aside.  It was a drive of six miles to the nearest mill, over a bad road.  I sat on two cleated boards placed across the box, with a blanket over me and my new overcoat and mittens on, and was very comfortable and happy.

I had taken a little of my uncle’s chewing tobacco out of its paper that lay on a shelf in the cellarway, for I had observed that my uncle generally chewed when he was riding.  I tried a little of it and was very sick for a few minutes.

Having recovered, I sang all the songs I knew, which were not many, and repeated the names of the presidents and divided the world into its parts and recited the principal rivers with all the sources and emptyings of the latter and the boundaries of the states and the names and locations of their capitals.  It amused me in the midst of my loneliness to keep my tongue busy and I exhausted all my knowledge, which included a number of declamations from the speeches of Otis, Henry and Webster, in the effort.  Before the journey was half over I had taken a complete inventory of my mental effects.  I repeat that it was amusement—­of the only kind available—­and not work to me.

I reached the mill safely and before the grain was ground the earth and the sky above it were white with snow driving down in a cold, stiff wind out of the northwest.  I loaded my grists and covered them with a blanket and hurried away.  The snow came so fast that it almost blinded me.  There were times when I could scarcely see the road or the horses.  The wind came colder and soon it was hard work to hold the reins and keep my hands from freezing.

Suddenly the wheels began jumping over rocks.  The horses were in the ditch.  I knew what was the matter, for my eyes had been filling with snow and I had had to brush them often.  Of course the team had suffered in a like manner.  Before I could stop I heard the crack of a felly and a front wheel dropped to its hub.  I checked the horses and jumped out and went to their heads and cleared their eyes.  The snow was up to my knees then.