There was a large pear tree in our garden, two nice apple trees, and a cherry tree, all bringing a little delicious fruit; we had not many pears the first year, but the second year there was a good crop, and we sold more than twenty shilling’s worth, beside what we gave away and used ourselves. I built a pigsty and put a pig in, that my wife might have something to look at when she walked in the garden, the pig settled and did nicely, and when it was killed it weighed 13 stone; we were cheered as the pig prospered, we felt we prospered also, and no doubt we did begin to get on nicely while we occupied the cottage and premises of Mr. Johnson George, at Oulton. We bought and put in the front room of our cottage, a register stove, three-feet square, the selling price was one shilling per inch, costing £1 15s., landlord supplying a new chimney piece, and we put up an iron oven in the back room, but we did not continue in that occupation very long, we spent four seasons of Christmas there, when, their son Henry being about to be married we had to leave and make room for the old people, who, by the way, had to make room for the younger ones. We agreed to go, and leave behind the stove which is still in the room, after forty years use. We took away the iron oven to another cottage, which I engaged of Mrs. Pleasance Knights at the rent of £4 10s. per year; at that time standing empty, the next tenement being also empty, they would not stand empty now if owners wished them occupied. This was rather a convenient old cottage, it supplied a room on the front side, which I could use for a workshop, which was a great accommodation, and at Christmas, that is on the 6th of January, 1842, we left Mr. George’s cottage, as requested, and took our goods and chattels to Mrs. Knights’s cottage, on the hill, and although it was sometimes a sad place for smoking, yet we had a good share of employment, and on the whole, although we met with some who were not at all times inclined to act uprightly, yet there was a good preponderance of honesty in the neighbourhood, men and women on whose acts and promises we could rely.