I hardly think it can be as bad; for many a saint must have had such experiences--which really is thinking both right and wrong, and doing right, even if he did think wrong afterward.
That first winter, I lived on Captain Sproule's farm, and had my board, washing and mending.

His sister kept house for him, and his younger brother, Finley, managed the place summers, with such help in handling it as the captain had time to give when he passed the farm on his voyages.

It was quite a stock farm, and here I learned something about the handling of cattle,--and in those days this meant breaking and working them.

It was a hard winter, and there was so much work on the farm that I got only one month's schooling.
The teacher was a man named Lockwood.

He kept telling us that we ought to read about farming, and study the business by which we expected to live; and this made a deep impression on me.