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Father's brother William was, I believe, considered the smart one of the family. He, certainly, had no doubt of it. He got an education, studying to be a minister, and turned out to be a lawyer! He went to [[Ohio]], which at that time was considered "out West". Having gotten a little money by the practice of law, he invested it in an iron foundry, in the city of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan,_Ohio Logan]. From time to time he wrote to my father of the folly of digging away among the stones on South Hill for a living. He suggested selling out and investing in the iron foundry, where fortunes were being made. He reminded my father that his children had reached an age that demanded better schools than South Hill afforded. Now father greatly desired for his children that which <u>he</u> had missed, an education. Uncle's arguments sounded sensible and set him thinking. Finally he sold out and left the Hill.
"Were we sorry to leave the dear old place?" My mother should have been glad to leave a place of hard and incessant toil. Ever after, she had only housekeeping for a family of four. As to us children, did you ever see children who weren't ready to "jump out of the frying-pan into the fire" for the sake of a change? Father's little <u>all</u> was $7,000. This he allowed his brother to invest for him without security.
We did not go West immediately. My grandmother Howe, for many years a widow, had married again, happily married, Calvin Holmes, a Baptist deacon. <u>She</u> was a Methodist, so they compromised: one Sunday she went with him to the Baptist church, the next Sunday he went with her to the Methodist church. I remember them as two lovely old people, and really godly. We lived in grandmother's house in Westford. This house was unique: it was built against a hill, with a pretty front yard on the street. On the first floor was an entry, living-room and kitchen. the outside door of the kitchen opened on a lane running up the hill at the side of the house; Another opened into a cellar with brick floor and walls, on the level of the kitchen. From the front entry, stairs went up to a landing, with windows and a door opening into an orchard. All the rooms upstairs looked both to the village street, in front, and to the orchard and meadows in the back.
I went to the village school, to church, and often to grandmother Holmes', a farm a few miles from Westford. I became acquainted with the family of "Uncle Peter '''Plaurer?'''", whose apprentice boy my father had been. Aunt Parmelia was a stately lady in black silk dress and snowy lace cap. I always felt somewhat awed in her presence. Once she said to me, when I was enjoying a delicious dinner at her table: "Don't smack your lips, Mercy; it isn't lady-like." But she was really very kind, as were all the family.
At this time a great joy came into my life, in the shape of a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terpodion#The_Melodion_of_Dietz melodion]. I found it one day when I came from school. My delight knew no bounds, and I could not go to bed until I had succeeded in picking out the notes of "Mary at the Saviour's Tomb". Our friends said, "Now Mercy must have music lessons". But my father's answer was, "What need of lessons, she will soon play anything she can sing."
==Removal to Ohio==
==Dress and Peaches==
