The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The men wanted socks made of heavy yarn and big enough to tuck their heavy pant legs inside, made with two and two rib up to their knees, and tied with three strands of heavy wool braided and a fancy tassle on each end. They always wore two pair of shorter socks inside for the winters were very cold, often 45° to 50° below. In the spring of 1888 Father decided to sell his farm on Nipissing Road and he bought another about one mile from there from Mr. Frank Nye. He had the fields and garden planted before he left July 1st, and Father had the crop on his farm, and a Mr. & Mrs. Bowman took that over. The Smith family moved to their new home August 1st and it was my turn then on August 9th to make my appearance and rule the roost for a few years; but Mother has told me I had a terrible temper when I was about one and two years. I had red hair, maybe that accounts for it. She said when I got angry I'd get down on my hands and knees and bump my head on the floor. Father said, Leave her alone, she will stop when it hurts," but Mother said the more it hurt, the harder I'd bump. She was afraid I would really hurt myself, so she would pick me up. I don't know if she bumped my other end or loved and soothed me; but I know she would do whatever was the best. Maybe I did do something to my brain which has accounted for the many foolish things I have done during my life. Mother named me Sophia Ellen, after the daughters of two of her mid-wives, Mrs. Parks and Mrs. Woods. After all her babies, I was the only one she insisted she pick my name. Not too fancy but not very common. Anyhow, it pleased Mother and that counts for a lot. When I was nearly three years old the stork came along again with another brother. I can faintly remember Father picking a name. Finally it was Joel, named after his brother, then he went to his Bible and settled on Amos, so Joel Amos was it. Later we kids used to call him Joel Amos Obadiah. When he was nearly two years old, my brother Rob came home from a logging camp, sick, and at the same time several men at the camp were also sick, so they had a Doctor come and he found they had scarlet fever. It wasn't long until our family was sick. Father looked up our symptoms in the Doctor's book and sure enough we all had scarlet fever except Father. So, it was ten of us in bed, including Mother. Father quarantined the house and looked after us all, besides doing the farm chores and cooking. He brought us all through and without a doctor. It may have been a mild form. No one else in the settlement got it. I can remember the first meal my sister Florence and I had out of bed. We wanted some blueberry fruit out of a certain jar. Mother didn't have many glass jars. In those days mostly crockery. It was late autumn when we were sick. The next September, in 1893, another little redhead sister, Sarah Louise came to join the family. I don't remember much about her arrival but I do remember a certain thing that happened the next spring. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and Mother was down on her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor which was white pine with no paint. It had to be scrubbed with a brush and soap for it really got dirty with so many feet tracking in mud on a wet day. She had it all done but a strip from the door to the stove. She was also baking bread and needed wood