September and October were busy months to us; but we revelled in the joys of a plentiful harvest. Three hundred bushels of corn, and four hundred of potatoes, rewarded our toil, besides more than we could use of garden vegetables. This was three times as much as we had ever raised in a season before, and we had not room for it in our barn and storehouse. We could not use a quarter of the potatoes, even if we all remained at the farm through winter. We offered them for sale to the steamers and traders, and sold three hundred bushels to a speculator, who doubled his money on them at a settlement, where the people had come too late to make a crop that season.
The cool weather was coming, and, after we had slaughtered our pigs, the hard work of the season was over. The Gracewoods had decided not to remain over winter, and I could not think of parting with them. I was determined to see the world. I heard so much of the country below that I could not resist the temptation to visit it. I stated my intention to Kit Cruncher and the Gracewoods. None of them offered any objections, not even the hunter, who was to be left alone.
IN WHICH PHIL, WITH HIS FORTUNE AS A FARMER, BIDS FAREWELL TO FIELD AND FOREST.
"This place is wuth money, boy," said Kit Cruncher, when I had told him what I intended to do.
"The more it is worth, the better it will be for you, Kit," I replied.
"I'm willin' to pay for the place and the improvements. I've made well on it this year--more'n ever I could trappin'. Then, you see, the settlements is workin' up this way, and another year I shall hev 'em all round me."
"All right; hope you'll make your fortune, Kit."
"I don't think I have any rights here which I can sell. You are welcome to everything that belongs to me. But I will leave the whole matter to Mr. Gracewood. I know he will do what is fair."
"Just as you say, Phil. This life jest suits me, now I'm gittin' old, and don't want to tramp through the woods no more. It's a good sitooation for me, and I shall be lucky to get it at any fair price. I shan't want it long, and when I've done with it, yon kin hev it agin, for I hain't no relations to fight over what I leave behind me."
"How long have you lived in the woods, Kit?" I asked; for, though I had known him from my childhood, I had no knowledge of his antecedents.