old cow, and two young cattle we had raised from her, that we kept
through the spring. In the summer the other ox had the bloody murrain
and he died.

Then we had no team, no money to get a team with, and our place was
mortgaged. Now when father got anything for the family he had to bring it
home himself. We got out of potatoes, these he bought at Dearbornville,
paid a dollar a bushel for them, and brought them home on his back. He
sent me to the village for meal. I called for it and the grocerman
measured it to me in a quart measure which was little at the top, such as
liquors are measured with. I carried the meal home. In this way we had to
pack home everything we bought.

When potatoes got ripe we had plenty of the best. On father's first visit
to Michigan he was told that the soil of Michigan would not produce good
potatoes. We soon found that this was a mistake for we had raised some
good ones before, but not enough to last through the summer.

We still had wheat but sometimes had to almost do without groceries. We
always had something to eat but sometimes our living was very poor.
Sometimes we had potatoes and milk and sometimes thickened milk. This was
made by dampening flour, rolling it into fine lumps and putting them into
boiling milk with a little salt, and stirring it until it boiled again.
This was much more palatable than potatoes and milk.

One afternoon two neighbors' girls came to visit us. They stayed late.
After they went away I asked mother why she didn't give them some tea;
she said she had no tea to give them, and that if she had given them the
best she had they would have gone away and told how poor we were.