"After a while, I wanted a carriage of some kind to bring in my grain, and draw away my ashes. So I blocked off the wheels with my axe, from the butt of a black oak tree, and backed home boards for a box, three miles, from the nearest saw-mill. It did me good service, and I sold it for a price when I bought my first wagon. But we all took a world of comfort; and what was pleasanter work than putting up log heaps and brush heaps in the cool of the night, and seeing them blaze again on our clean sweet fallows?" "A feast on bear's meat and metheglin, at Aunt Polly's," cried Colwell. "Picking bushels of wild strawberries, big as your thumb," added Mrs. Colwell. "And going four miles to raisins," added Thomas Teezle. "And five miles to weddins, once in a while," added Mrs. Teezle. "To those very times we are indebted," said Fabens; "to its tugging labors and hard privations, its trials, and griefs, we are indebted for much of the fulness of heart, and breadth of character we now possess, and the comforts we are taking on our handsome farms. We took muscle and might from nature; we rounded out our life; we learned to shift for ourselves, and feel for our neighbors; and the earth crowned our labors with such harvests, we grew hopeful and brave. We all of us learned things that cannot be found in books. Books have their value, and it is very great. They teach us to take the hip-lock of nature, and lead us cross-lots to success; they increase and elevate the pleasures of our vocation; a taste for them, is itself a blessing that sweetens our leisure hours, attracts us from temptations, and will gladden our old age. But of the two, a large and wise experience is better, and comes well before them." As he concluded these words, the hour of the clock was told, and the company were served to warm pumpkin-pie, that was a luxury to taste, and refreshment to remember. Then the young people had a play and a dance on the green, and the old people exchanged good wishes, and all went their ways, leaving the Fabenses happier for that reunion of neighborly hearts, than for the multiplied piles of corn they left glowing in the moonlight. XXII. GEORGE LUDLOW AND ALMON FRISBIE. George Ludlow was introduced in a former chapter; Mrs. Fabens and her daughter discussed his character and life. They spoke of him as poor, and dependent on his own hands for a living for the family; as despised by certain young people in Summerfield who happened to stand above need; and yet as manly and capable; a lover of nature and books. I need say nothing of his person, except that he was homely to a stranger and handsome to a friend. I need say little more of his past history than this; he had labored for Fabens for a few weeks, and now a mutual regard quite ripened to affection, was rising between him and Fanny.