Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 9

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Oh, how well we prospered in that little one-horse town, where there was little money, but the fields, orchards and gardens brought forth their fruit abundantly, while fish and game were plenty. The business center consisted of one large grocery and notion store, a sawmill, gristmill, fish and game market, and several large storehouses. I soon found employment in the store which was kept by Obadiah Stubbs, where I worked while I was not in school as long as I lived there.

At the end of one year, father had ninety members in his flock, and was still preaching in the schoolhouse. Eight years after our arrival, the congregation had built a commodious log and plastered church and father was receiving four hundred dollars salary, while I had saved two hundred dollars. With this and father's savings, we bought the Dimmick place, a comfortable village home.

On my twenty-first birthday I married Fanny Shepherd, a beautiful blue-eyed girl of eighteen, when we, with father, moved into our new quarters, and as Mr. Stubbs had proposed taking me in as a partner, we looked forward to a happy and prosperous life.

Father's affectionate acts and words to Fanny caused her to love him and, when we were blessed with a little baby boy, our happiness was complete, but, oh, how little did I dream of the dark storm that was gathering on yonder horizon, whose distant thunder I could not hear, and angry lightning I could not see, but whose dark mantle, when spread over, would cause me to bow down in grief, such as few ever realize.