Here our residence was on the outskirts of the town, roads very often muddy and no sidewalks most of the way, Mr.Stanton was frequently from home, I had poor servants, and an increasing number of children.

To keep a house and grounds in good order, purchase every article for daily use, keep the wardrobes of half a dozen human beings in proper trim, take the children to dentists, shoemakers, and different schools, or find teachers at home, altogether made sufficient work to keep one brain busy, as well as all the hands I could impress into the service.

Then, too, the novelty of housekeeping had passed away, and much that was once attractive in domestic life was now irksome.

I had so many cares that the company I needed for intellectual stimulus was a trial rather than a pleasure.
There was quite an Irish settlement at a short distance, and continual complaints were coming to me that my boys threw stones at their pigs, cows, and the roofs of their houses.

This involved constant diplomatic relations in the settlement of various difficulties, in which I was so successful that, at length, they constituted me a kind of umpire in all their own quarrels.