ID: Emily (Fairfield) Duncan autobiography, page 9

haste, all worked to uncover us before we should smother, not daring to use pitch forks fo fear of striking us. We were finally rescued: Albert choking and black in the face; I not so much affected. In due time, we arrived at our destination and took possession of our new home, a log cabin of, I think, two rooms. May and Will went to school in a cabin a short distance away.

I played with other children on the hill, Albert being still too young to take part in our games. There was a tiny brook running passed our house and the older children delighted in making miniature water wheels which fascinated me to watch. Another favorite occupation was to go to the mine dumps and, breaking up the large pieces of ore, look for small bits of gold which we sometimes found and treasured. One day, returning from such an expedition, I was crossing a shaft on a plank when I stumbled and fell. Fortunately, I retained my hold on the plank but ran a large nail, a spike, I think, into the fleshy part of my leg. The other children helped me to limp home where I was promptly put to bed and a thick slab of salt pork applied to the wound. It soon healed and there were no ill effects although I still have a small round scar to show where the nail went in.

I have often heard that the sense of smell is most potent in recalling to mind memories of things almost forgotten. In my case, the odor of a "good cigar" brings to this day, a feeling of joyous holiday times. I am walking the streets of our little mountain town of Adin, my hand firmly clasped in that of my beloved "Papa." It is the 4th of July. Flags are flying, the band playing stirring music, and the sidewalks have been freshly sprinkled. We enter the cool inviting store (general) where jars of stick candy are enticingly displayed. I think Papa usually smoked a pipe and the cigar was as much a holiday treat to him as the wonderful stick candy was to me. So always, that particular fragrant smoke has brought back to me the happy holiday spirit of that day when I was not more than five years old.

The climate in our little settlement on the hill was very severe. Heavy snows fell and for several months each winter we were completely shut away from the outside world. Our one storekeeper planned to lay in store sufficient to last us all till spring, but sometimes one or another commodity would be exhausted and housekeepers were obligated to use ingenuity in planning meals. One winter the sugar supply ran completely out. Papa bought the store's entire supply of "rock candy," a delicious confection of pure white crystals of sugar adhering to strings which had been dipped into it while it was in a melted state, much as the old fashioned candles were made. This candy was used to sweeten the coffee at meal time, which seemed to the younger members of the family a terrible waste of good sweets.

Our log house was not very weather tight. It had a ceiling of cloth tacked to the rafters and sometimes before the fire was built in the morning and while we children lay snug in our beds, Papa mounted the table and, with a small shovel, removed through an opening in the ceiling left for the purpose, a wash tub full of snow that had sifted in