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→Shady Hill
==Shady Hill==
The farm which was for some years our happy home, consisted of eighty acres of rich soil, already under cultivation. It lay on the main road to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore,_Illinois Sycamore], a thriving railroad town, sixty miles west of Chicago. On it was a large barn and a log house. Although most farmers in that vicinity had outgrown their log houses and built frame houses, it seemed quite the proper thing to begin our life "out West" in a log house. I will describe ours as well as I can.
It was long and not very high, with one window and a door in the front, and two windows in the back. Originally it had one room below and one above; but a partition across one end, divided in the middle, made two small bedrooms, each with a little square window. These were just large enough for a bed, a little stand under the window, and a small chair, leaving a narrow space at the foot of the bed. Here, hooks or nails on the partition served as a wardrobe.
Fortunately, the old fashioned bedsteads were high enough to admit of a trunk or boxes under the bed. A valance was tacked at the front and at the foot of the bed. Do you ask: "How was it possible to make the bed nicely?" Well, many things can be done under difficulties. I remember my mother shaking up the featherbed thoroughly, putting sheets and covers on carefully, arranging the pillows nicely, then smoothing the top with the broom handle, and patting the corners into shape, until they suited her. Housewives were proud of their featherbeds in those days. On Uncle Leon's first visit to us in Plainfield, he made fun of our mattresses and told his people, on going back: "You should see their BEDS! Why one can roll all over them without making a DENT."
The logs, rough outside with bark, were inside smooth and clean looking, with chinks of mortar showing between them. The furnishing of the living room was, of necessity, a very simple matter.
==Teaching==
==A Winter School==
