University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
How to conduct a farm to the best advantage, and steer clear of
the lawyers.

It is not my intention to dwell longer upon the
history of this period of my life, nor to recount in
detail how my easy and indolent temper at last
proved the ruin of me. I gave myself up to
laziness, neglecting my affairs to such a degree
that they soon became seriously entangled; and,
to make a long story short, I found myself, before
I had completed my twenty-eighth year, reduced
from independence, and almost affluence, to a
condition bordering upon actual poverty. My
farm, under the management of Mr. Aikin Jones
(for that was my steward's name), went gradually
to ruin; my orchards rotted away, without being
replanted; my meadows were converted into
swamps; my corn-fields filled with gullies; my
improvements fell into decay; and my receipts
began to run short of my expenses. Then came
borrowing and mortgaging, and, by-and-by, the
sale of this piece of land to remove the encumbrance
upon that; until I suddenly found myself
in the condition of my father when he began the
world; that is to say, the master of a little farm
of forty acres,—the centre and nucleus of the
fifteen hundred which he had got possession of

and bequeathed to me, but which had so soon
slipped through my fingers. There was this difference,
however, between us; the land, when my
father obtained it, was in good condition; it was
now (so well had it prospered under Jones's hands)
entirely worn out and empoverished, and not worth
a fourth part of its original value.

To add to my chagrin, I discovered that Mr.
Aikin Jones, whom I had treated rather as a
friend than servant, had abused my confidence;
in other words, that he was a rogue and villain,
who had taken advantage of my disinclination to
business, and my ignorance, as I believe I must
call it, to swindle me out of my property, which
he had the best opportunities to do. Whether he
effected his purpose by employing my own funds
or not, I cannot say; but, it is very certain, all the
different mortgages in which I was entangled
came, some how or other, by hook and by crook,
into his hands, and he took care to make the best
use of them. In a word, Mr. Jones became a rich
man, and I a poor one; and I had the satisfaction,
every day when I took a walk over my forty-acre
farm, as the place was familiarly called, though the
true name was Watermelon Hill, to find myself
stopped, which way soever I directed my steps, by
the possessions of Mr. Aikin Jones, my old friend
and overseer, whom I often saw roll by in his carriage,
while I was trudging along through the mud.

At the same time that I met with this heavy
misfortune, I had to endure others that were vexatious

enough. My brother-in-law and sister had
their suspicions of Mr. Jones, and often cautioned
me against him, though in vain,—not that I had
any very superstitious reliance on the gentleman's
integrity, but because I could not endure the trouble
of examining into his proceedings and accounts,
and chose therefore to believe him honest. This,
and my general indolence and indifference to my affairs,
incensed them both to that degree, that my sister
did not scruple to tell me to my face that I had
lost all the little sense I ever possessed; while my
brother-in-law took the freedom of saying of me in
public, “that I was wrong in the upper story,”—in
other words, that I was mad; and he had the insolence
to hint “that it ran in my blood,—that I had
inherited it from my mother,” she, as I mentioned
before, having lost her mind before her decease. I
was so much irritated by these insults on their part,
that I quarrelled with them both, though by no
means of a testy or choleric disposition; and it
was many years before we were reconciled. Having
therefore neither friends nor family, I was left
to bear my misfortunes alone; which was a great
aggravation of them all.