got a dollar for them.  To the honor of my father be it said, he gave up all his property to pay his debts, never withholding, where he could have done so.  A short while before he died there was one debt of a few hundred dollars he could not pay.  He wept and told me of this.  A year ago I settled up with Mr. Wills’ heirs and paid this debt to his children, who live near Peculiar in Cass county, Mo.  It would be such a joy to my father to know that I did this to save his honor.  When I see him, in our heavenly home, he will bless me for this.  “Love knows no sacrifice.”

I can not call to mind when the thought of self, governed any of my father’s actions.  It was his delight to provide for the comfort of others.  Devoted to his family and friends, and such a friend to the poor; I have heard my mother say that he made every one rich who worked for him.  When I first remember him he was a “Trader” and left his farm to an overseer.  My father drove hogs to Cincinnati before there were any railways.  I was always at his heels, when I could be.  He was standing on the stile one day giving directions to have a drove of hogs meet him at a certain place on Sunday.  I said:  “Pa, you will lose on those hogs.  You ought not to do that on Sunday.”  He gave me a quick, light, playful slap, saying:  “Stop that, every time you say that, I do lose.”

I can see that a responsibility to God was the fundamental principle in my father’s life.  After the negroes were freed, and we lived on the farm, there was so much to do, especially for him, but there was always a conveyance prepared to take his family to church and Sunday School—­I took the “New York Ledger”.  Mrs. Southworth wrote for it then.  ‘Capitola’, The Wrecker’s Son, with other thrilling stories, were so fascinating to me—­The paper came late Saturday and I would rather read it Sunday morning than go anywhere.  One morning I took my paper and went to the back of the orchard, thinking to get out of the sound of my father’s voice when he would call me to get ready for church.  I could just hear him but did not move.  After reading my paper, I returned to the house, Pa was just coming back with the rest of the family from church.  He looked at me with grief and anger in his glance and said, “Never mind, you ungrateful girl, you cannot say at the judgment Day, that your father did not provide a way for you to go to church.”  I never did this again and never was free from remorse for this ingratitude.  I know how Dr. Johnson felt when he was seen standing on a corner of the street with the sun beaming down upon his bare head, when asked why he did that he said, “My father had a book stand on this corner, when I was a boy once he asked me to stand here in his place as he was sick.  I would not, now I would expiate that by blistering my bare head in the sun if I could.  To this day I weep to think of grieving so noble a parent.