I wonder how many years more I shall spend here. I wonder if I must live and die here. I am no nearer fortune than three years ago, not so near by three years. I seem more and more chained down here by force of habit. I seem fit for little else but to dig. I long to see something of the great world beyond this lone foothill nook. Yet without money I feel less and less capable of going out and “getting on” in that world. And as for saving money--well, we call this a “three-dollar claim,” which means an average daily profit, when all expenses are paid, of two dollars more or less. These thought are making it as gloomy within as the weather is without. I must get out of this. My gray flannel working shirt needs mending. The right sleeve is ripped from wrist to elbow. It has been so ripped for about six weeks. I have rolled that wet sleeve up to the elbow about a hundred times a day, and at every tenth stroke of the pick it has unrolled again and flapped in my face. I sew up the sleeve with a very large needle and a very coarse thread doubled. This is a good time to clean up a little. I will be domestic to-day. I will bake a fresh batch of bread and make a pie. It shall be a mince pie. We are ten miles from the nearest baker’s mince pie. It shall be made of salt beef previously soaked to freshness, dried apples, molasses and vinegar in lieu of cider. The crust I roll out with a junk bottle on a smooth, flat board. I bake it on a shallow tin plate. It will be, when done, a thin, wafery pie; but it will be a pie--the shadow of a pie at least--such as I used to eat at home; only a shadow.