We didn't have gas or electricity on those days, so each day the lamps had to be filled, the globes polished and the wicks trimmed for the next night. What a contrast to pushing a button and getting light! However, there were some advantages in living in the country for a boy or girl. As soon as they were old enough they were given chores to do. The girls helped in the house and the boys on the farm. You could take the cows to pasture and get them in the evening. After 1895 when my uncle sold grandfather's old home farm, my father farmed twenty-one acres belonging to Aunt Sarah. Those fields were separated from ours by a large field or two, so if the horses weren't busy we got to ride for the cows. I can remember going for the cows on a frosty fall morning in my bare feet. At night the cows were always turned into a field across from the barn, containing an elevation we called the "Knob." They invariably went to the highest point. I would make them get up and stand and warm my feet where they had lain. What a contrast in keeping and feeding of chickens as of that time and today. No one expected to get eggs in the winter. It was a rare occasion if you found a fresh egg and mostly it was frozen and was saved for someone that was sick and off their feet. Mostly the chickens stood around in the wagon shed on one foot and then on the other. Combs frosted and looked like they wouldn't survive the winter. One winter my mother allowed me to warm up the pig pen with straw and gave me a dozen hens. I fed them carefully and we had eggs that winter, and I was a proud boy. While the eggs were still plenty in the summer my mother packed some in crocks in salt, with the small end down and not touching, and these kept good enough for cooking, or rather baking, in the winter. Every season brought its work and activities. In the spring the farmers prepared for their spring work. The harness was washed, greased, the plows put in shape for service. The horses were divested of their long coat of hair by lots of grooming and gradually working them. Then the work would start in earnest as soon as the ground had dried sufficiently. When one followed a plow or harrow all day he didn't need to take a walk in the evening for exercise, or take a sleeping tablet to make him sleep. Then up in the morning at six, breakfast with eggs and bacon and often fried potatoes or buckwheat cakes. What a contrast from today with our cereals and orange juice. Then came the summer and harvest time. The cradling of wheat and oats and cutting of hay. The wheat and oats were raked into sheaves and tied by hand. The hay in early times was cut by scythe. Then came the mower and rake. This was made of long wooden teeth that ran close to the ground and was hauled by a horse. When the load was large enough the teeth were lifted up by a handle that caused them to catch the ground and dump the load in windrows. Then came the wheat and oats reaper that cut the grain and kicked it off in sheaves that had to be tied by hand. Then came the binder that both cut and tied the sheaves, and now we have the combine that threshes as well.