When we went to Portage, our nearest town, about ten or twelve miles
from the farm, it would oftentimes be late before we got back, and in
the summer-time, in sultry, rainy weather, the clouds were full of
sheet lightning which every minute or two would suddenly illumine the
landscape, revealing all its features, the hills and valleys, meadows
and trees, about as fully and clearly as the noonday sunshine; then as
suddenly the glorious light would be quenched, making the darkness
seem denser than before. On such nights the cattle had to find the way
home without any help from us, but they never got off the track, for
they followed it by scent like dogs. Once, father, returning late from
Portage or Kingston, compelled Tom and Jerry, our first oxen, to leave
the dim track, imagining they must be going wrong. At last they
stopped and refused to go farther. Then father unhitched them from the
wagon, took hold of Tom's tail, and was thus led straight to the
shanty. Next morning he set out to seek his wagon and found it on the
brow of a steep hill above an impassable swamp.
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