in the road in front of the tavern. While in the winter the guests would gather about the big fireplace in the tap-room, and smoke and chew while some one read the news out loud. Over in one corner was a table for checkers and backgammon. We didn't have spittoons in those days. We didn't need them; because I used to keep the floor of the tap-room good and clean by means of a layer of white sand from Rockaway. One newspaper would last a company for several evenings, because politics ran high in those days, and discussions would last sometimes far into a winter's night. When Andrew Jackson's bank measure went through, there was such high feeling, and the parties were that bitter, my guests sometimes had fist-fights before the discussion was over. Another topic of discussion one time was a book by a Mr. Fenimore Cooper, called "The Spy." It made no end of talk about the time of which I am now speaking. Because 'most every other man you met had his own idea as to who was the real original of "The Spy" in the story. I never read books of any kind, and novels are a sinful kind of book, anyhow. But I couldn't help hearing a lot about this book, because everybody was talking about it. And when finally it came out that the original of "The Spy" was no other than the same Enoch Crosby that is in the Gilead burying ground up in Carmel, I was mighty interested. I had a whole lot to tell about the man

to the people who came to the tavern. It would be a mercy to put up a tombstone to mark Crosby's grave. I almost believe I would do it myself. Only just now I am giving orders for a tombstone in my own family burying lot at Drewsclift — a big cross, carved out of solid granite.

TH

IX

HESE talks of a winter's night around the fireplace in the "Bull's Head" tap-room, were great places for getting the news. Every man who had something new not only liked to tell it but was expected to. Because newspapers were not very numerous, and besides, there were lots of people who couldn't read it even when they had one. Accordingly news got around in great part by word of mouth. There was much excitement, I remember, over the news of the invention of brimstone matches sticks of wood which would light themselves. For, one day, the news came to us that children had been seen down on the streets of New York City selling pine sticks about five inches long, with something on the end of each stick, so that by rubbing it the stick would break out into a blaze. It made a lot of stir when some of these pine shavings were actually shown in the tap-room one night, and it was seen that the backlog and flint-and-tinder were now out of date. But these loco-focos, as they were called, were rather expensive. So I didn't put them into the tavern right away. New-fangled things usually

cost more than they are worth; I was getting rich by saving the pennies, here one and there one, like a hen fills her crop, one grain at a time. So the fire tongs which hung by the fireplace for use by the guests to light their pipes with cinders from the fire, were not taken down. I never was much of a hand, anyhow, for new-fashioned things.

Another piece of news which was beginning to be noised around, up in our tavern, was of a rich country out West beyond the Alleghanies. It was not often that we got a traveller from so far away as that. So when we did, we made him tell all he knew. In this way I heard tell how there was a rich valley out in Ohio, called the Scioto Valley, where there was some of the finest beef cattle ever known. And these cattle could be bought out there for a song. A man by the name of Lewis Sanders, across the Ohio River in Kentucky, had imported three bulls and three heifers from England, of the short-horn variety. The Pattens (I think it was), from the South Fork, in Virginia, had also taken with them into that Western country some blooded stock, and had brought out the bull Pluto. A blooded short-horn cow, Venus, bulled by Pluto, had helped to people all the pastures throughout the Scioto region. This importing of foundation stocks from England was also helped along by General Van Rensselaer, up at Albany, who had just been bringing over from Europe the bull Wash

ington, and two short-horn heifers. The short-horns make one of the best beef breeds I have ever seen. Our American cattle were mostly of the Devon, the Hereford, the Sussex and the Norfolk, of England; the Ayrshire and the Galloway, of Scotland; the Kerrys, of Ireland; the Alderney, Guernsey and Jersey breeds of the Channel Islands; with the Holsteins and Holstein-Friesians from Holland. All of these imported breeds, out in the rich Ohio and Kentucky reservations, had bred into an even finer beef cattle than on their native soil. Perhaps this was because of the rich grass and good quality of water. The short-horns were particularly sought out by us drovers, because they were beef breeds. In that day beeves were more important than dairy cattle. Beef is easier to transport than butter or cheese, because it will drive overland of itself. In that day we didn't have hardly any other means of transporting food-stuff long distances, except to drive it on its own legs. Not that the short-horns are not good milkers, too; but they are especially good for butcher

purposes.

When I heard these stories about the Western lands, I became mighty interested, because the city of New York was growing so all-fired fast, it was hard to find enough beeves in the regions roundabout; so that the price of fit cattle was going higher and higher. I pondered the matter. I made up my mind. Calling Chamberlain to me one day