Her father had not talked then but sometimes, when they had driven far and
were homeward bound in the failing light of evening, words did come to him.
She remembered one evening in the summer after her mother died and when
her father often took her with him on his drives. They had stopped for the
evening meal at the house of a farmer and when they got on the road again,
the moon came out. Something present in the spirit of the night stirred
Tom, and he spoke of his life as a boy in the new country and of his
fathers and brothers. "We worked hard, Clara," he said. "The whole country
was new and every acre we planted had to be cleared." The mind of the
prosperous farmer fell into a reminiscent mood and he spoke of little
things concerning his life as a boy and young man; the days of cutting wood
alone in the silent, white forest when winter came and it was time for
getting out firewood and logs for new farm buildings, the log rollings to
which neighboring farmers came, when great piles of logs were made and set
afire that space might be cleared for planting. In the winter the boy went
to school in the village of Bidwell and as he was even then an energetic,
pushing youth, already intent on getting on in the world, he set traps in
the forest and on the banks of streams and walked the trap line on his way
to and from school. In the spring he sent his pelts to the growing town of
Cleveland where they were sold. He spoke of the money he got and of how he
had finally saved enough to buy a horse of his own.

Tom had talked of many other things on that night, of the spelling-downs at
the schoolhouse in town, of huskings and dances held in the barns and of
the evening when he went skating on the river and first met his wife. "We
took to each other at once," he said softly. "There was a fire built on the
bank of the river and after I had skated with her we went and sat down to
warm ourselves.

"We wanted to get married to each other right away," he told Clara. "I