But an old colored woman came in who rather beat the clerk. She inquired
for cheap calico; the clerk threw down some and told her the price. She
said, "Oh that is too much! I want some cheap." Then the clerk threw down
some that looked old and faded. With a broad grin, showing her teeth and
the white of her eyes not a little, she said: "Oh, ho! my goot Lo'd dat
war made when Jope war paby!"

When father and mother had traded all they could afford, it was nearly
night, and we all got into the cart and started for home. We got upon the
Chicago road opposite where the Grand Trunk Junction now is, and stopped.
Mother thought she could not go any farther, and the oxen were tired.
Father went into a log house on the north side of the Chicago road and
asked them if they could keep us all night. They said they would, and we
turned in. They used us first-rate, and treated us with much respect.
Next morning after breakfast we went home.




CHAPTER V.

THE JUG OF WHISKY AND TEMPERANCE MEETING.


I have already said that, as money was getting short; father sold Asa
Blare half of his oxen. They thought they could winter the oxen on marsh
hay. They found some they thought very good on the creek bottom, about a
mile and a quarter from where we lived. They said they would go right at
work and cut it before some one else found it. As there was some water on
the ground, and they would have to mow in the wet, they thought they