Our nearest neighbor was a genuine Yankee, Daniel Dustin by name. He was very rich, well read, liberal minded, respectable and honest, but so _close_ that he would scarcely let his own family have enough food to eat, and his wife was even more stingy. Mr. Dustin agreed to let me work for my board until spring, and then he would give me five dollars a month, which offer I cheerfully accepted. He immediately took me out into the woods to chop wood for the summer, and he was to haul it home. The new, tender muscles and nails on my fingers made wood chopping very painful to me, and I could feel every blow of the axe through my entire body. Never has any man worked so hard for me, when I afterwards hired help for good wages, as I worked for my board here; and, by the way, this board consisted chiefly of potatoes and corn meal cake. When the spring work commenced I got five dollars a month, and had to get up at five o'clock in the morning to do the chores, and then work in the field from seven in the morning until dark. In the beginning of June I got a letter from my parents, stating that my father and brother were going to leave for New York immediately, and they asked me to meet them there and go West with them. I had never complained in my letters to my parents, but, on the other hand, I had not advised them to come to America, either. They had been advised to do so by some of my fellow-passengers on the "Ambrosius," who went to Illinois, and were highly pleased with their prospects. So I went to Boston again. My father's voyage had been delayed, and I had to wait for him over a month, during which time I got sick, and would have been in a sorry plight, indeed, if it had not been for my friend Eustrom, who now felt like a rich man, with his six dollars a week. A couple of years later he became the partner of his employer. CHAPTER III. The Arrival of my Father and Brother--Journey to Illinois--Work on a Railroad--The Ague--Doctor Ober--Religious Impressions--The Arrival of my Mother, Sister and her Husband--A Burning Railroad Train--We go to Minnesota--Our Experience as Wood Choppers and Pioneers. Finally my father and brother arrived, and again I turned my course westwards in company with them and their friends. We traveled by rail to Buffalo and across the lake to Toledo, thence by rail again to Chicago. In the summer of 1852 there were no railroads west of Chicago, and our company had to take passage on a canal-boat drawn by horses to La Salle, and from this place we rode in farmers wagons to Andover and Galesburg. The country around there was as yet only in the first stages of development; there was very little money in circulation, and no demand for farm products. The immigrants suffered a great deal from fever and other climatic diseases.