I had then my goods to look after, my house to
arrange, and my food to provide. Then work wanted doing on the farm--a
hundred kinds of work, all new, and many of them hard and very
perplexing. We wanted men to aid us; and men were not to be got; or,
when got, were difficult to manage, and hard to please. And horses, and
cows, and sheep, were wanted; and poultry, and pigs; and ploughs, and
harrows, and wagons, and harness. And stoves and fuel were required. And
the house had to be enlarged, and the barns rebuilt, and the gardens
cultivated, and the orchard replanted. And a hundred lessons on farming
had to be learnt, and a hundred more to be unlearnt. And we were always
making mistakes, and sustaining losses. And our neighbors were not all
that we could wish; and we were not all that they could wish. It was
impossible to avoid impositions, and difficult to take injustice
quietly; so we remonstrated, and resisted, and made things worse.
Before we had got ourselves fairly settled we began to be visited by a
number of friends. And many of those friends were wilder and more
extravagant, in their views on religion and politics, than myself; and
instead of helping me to quiet reflection, did much to render such a
thing impossible. They were mostly Garrisonian Abolitionists, with whom
I had become acquainted while in England, or through the medium of
anti-slavery publications.
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