"Your father was a temperance man?"
"Temperance! - He had been fond enough of the whiskey bottle in his
day. He drank up a good farm in the United States, and then he
thought he could not do better than turn loyal, and get one here for
nothing. He did not care a cent, not he, for the King of England.
He thought himself as good, any how. But he found that he would have
to work hard here to scratch along, and he was mightily plagued with
the rheumatics, and some old woman told him that good spring water
was the best cure for that; so he chose this poor, light, stony land
on account of the spring, and took to hard work and drinking cold
water in his old age."
"How did the change agree with him?"
"I guess better than could have been expected. He planted that fine
orchard, and cleared his hundred acres, and we got along slick
enough as long as the old fellow lived."
"And what happened after his death, that obliged you to part with
your land?"
"Bad times - bad crops," said Uncle Joe, lifting his shoulders.
"I had not my father's way of scraping money together.
