that had to be dodged.  Later the stumps were all dug and chopped out to make way for the McCormick reaper, and because I proved to be the best chopper and stump-digger I had nearly all of it to myself.  It was dull, hard work leaning over on my knees all day, chopping out those tough oak and hickory stumps, deep down below the crowns of the big roots.  Some, though fortunately not many, were two feet or more in diameter.

And as I was the eldest boy, the greater part of all the other hard work of the farm quite naturally fell on me.  I had to split rails for long lines of zigzag fences.  The trees that were tall enough and straight enough to afford one or two logs ten feet long were used for rails, the others, too knotty or cross-grained, were disposed of in log and cordwood fences.  Making rails was hard work and required no little skill.  I used to cut and split a hundred a day from our short, knotty oak timber, swinging the axe and heavy mallet, often with sore hands, from early morning to night.  Father was not successful as a rail-splitter.  After trying the work with me a day or two, he in despair left it all to me.  I rather liked it, for I was proud of my skill, and tried to believe that I was as tough as the timber I mauled, though this and other heavy jobs stopped my growth and earned for me the title “Runt of the family.”

In those early days, long before the great labor-saving machines came to our help, almost everything connected with wheat-raising abounded in trying work,—­cradling in the long, sweaty dog-days, raking and binding, stacking, thrashing,—­and it often seemed to me that our fierce, over-industrious way of getting the grain from the ground was too closely connected with grave-digging.  The staff of life, naturally beautiful, oftentimes suggested the grave-digger’s spade.  Men and boys, and in those days even women and girls, were cut down while cutting the wheat.  The fat folk grew lean and the lean leaner, while the rosy cheeks brought from Scotland and other cool countries across the sea faded to yellow like the wheat.  We were all made slaves through the vice of over-industry.  The same was in great part true in making hay to keep the cattle and horses through the long winters.  We were called in the morning at four o’clock and seldom got to bed before nine, making a broiling, seething day seventeen hours long loaded with heavy work, while I was only a small stunted boy; and a few years later my brothers David and Daniel and my older sisters had to endure about as much as I did.  In the harvest dog-days and dog-nights and dog-mornings, when we arose from our clammy beds, our cotton shirts clung to our backs as wet with sweat as the bathing-suits of swimmers, and remained so all the long, sweltering days.  In mowing and cradling, the most exhausting of all the farm work, I made matters worse by foolish ambition in keeping ahead of the hired men.  Never a warning word was spoken of the dangers of over-work.