Thomas continued to live with her, in her log-house, and to cultivate the land which she had retained.

In the fall and winter, when there was nothing to be done in the fields or garden, he was accustomed to work in the shop, making improvements for the house, such as finishing off the stoop into another room, to be used for a kitchen, making new windows to the house, and a regular front door, and in preparing fences and gates to be put up around the house.

He made an aqueduct, too, to conduct the water from a new spring which he discovered at a place higher than the house, and so brought a constant stream of water into the kitchen which he had made in the stoop.

The stumps, too, in the fields around the house, gradually decayed, so that Thomas could root them out and smooth over the ground where they had stood.

Mary Erskine's ten acres thus became very smooth and beautiful.