Читать книгу All in the Day's Work: An Autobiography онлайн

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He set himself gaily at breaking land, building the house for mother, working in a sawmill to pay for the lumber. He did it alone, even to the making of window frames and doors. I know how he did it—whistling from morning till night, mischief and tenderness chasing each other across his blue eyes as he thought of my mother’s coming, their future together.

The plan they had made provided for her going west with their household goods in August. The money was arranged for, so they thought; but before it was taken from the bank the panic came, and every county bank in Pennsylvania was closed. There was no money anywhere, nothing for my mother to do but stay where she was while my father struggled to earn by teaching and carpenter work the money which would bring us on. But the panic reached Iowa, dried up its money supply. People were living by barter, my father reported. What a heartbreaking waiting it was for them, coming as it did after an engagement of six years every week of which they had both found long!