mortgage was, she replied that it was something that would take our home
away from us, if not paid.

Father went to Dearbornville and mortgaged his lot to Mrs. Phlihaven, a
widow woman, for one hundred dollars, said to be at seven per cent., as
that was lawful interest then. We supposed, at the time, he got a hundred
dollars, but he got only eighty. Probably the reason he did not let us
know the hard conditions of the mortgage, was because we opposed it so.
Mrs. Phlihaven said as long as he would pay the twenty dollars shave
money, and the seven dollars interest annually, she would let it run. And
it did run until the shave money and interest more than ate up the
principal.

Father bought the oxen back for the old price, forty dollars, and bought
another cow, of Mr. McVay, for which he paid eighteen dollars, leaving
him twenty-two dollars of the hired money.

It was now spring, the oxen became very poor, one of them was taken sick
and got down. Father said he had the hollow horn and doctored him for
that; but I think to day, if the oxen had had a little corn meal, and
good hay through the winter, they would have been all right.

After the ox got down, and we could not get him up he still ate and
seemed to have a good appetite. I went to Dearbornville, bought hay at
the tavern and paid at the rate of a dollar a hundred. I tied it up in a
rope, carried it home on my back and fed it to him. Then I went into the
woods, with some of the other children, and gathered small brakes that
lay flat on the ground. They grew on beech and maple land, and kept green
all winter. The ox ate some of them, but he died; our new cow, also, died
in less than two weeks after father bought her. Then we had one ox, our