Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

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[6] mother about the house more than he did father in the farm work, yet he did many chores in the woodhouse and in the garden and around the barn, which gave father hours of time. My father, a man about five feet eleven in height, with dark-brown hair and sandy whiskers, which he wore at the sides of his face, was not very strong and often tortured with rheumatic attacks, yet he resolutely did the farm work. To me now it is wonderful how much he accomplished in the course of a year, for the winter never set in till the cellar was well replenished with meat, vegetables, and fruit, ample for a comfortable living and sufficient for our wants.

Coming with his young wife to his father in Leeds, Me., some four years before, he had succeeded in freeing the farm from a heavy mortgage and in giving support to all his household.

That farm, nearly half of which was wood and pasture land, did not exceed eighty acres. We had several cows, a yoke of oxen, and between fifty and sixty sheep. We raised hens and turkeys in sufficient numbers for our home use, and had also a beautiful apple orchard, which never failed the family in its fruitfulness.

My father's fondness for horses helped increase his income. He would buy up six or eight, as many as his stables would hold, and train them carefully, feeding them well for a few months, then lead or drive them to the nearest market. He succeeded in this trading so well that he was able to clear the farm of its obligation sooner than he could have done by the ordinary profits from the crops.

I love to think of my father and to remember how fond he was of music and how sweetly he played of