IMH 75:2 153

"Chronicles of Upper Burnet" (1)

1881

Friday, January 7

A clear day. The mercury stood at zero at sunrise and there
was no thawing though not much freezing merely I guess be­
cause everything is frozen that can be. The day was sacred to
hauling logs. There is snow to an average deepness of five
inches at least. Father cut first some sugar-tree logs in the
woods across the creek then a beech tree close to Bain's Iine(14)
and almost directly east from the barn. He hauled the sugars to
the house on the bob-sled while Alvin and I trimmed up the
beech and cut it in two. It was limby and knotty, the axes were
dull, and the snow rather cool for the feet. I cut a considerable
hole in one of my leather boots There were 3 beech logs

Teaching note: .."cut a considerable hole in one of my leather boots." That should make one cringe. What could the result be in he would have cut is foot badly? The nearest doctor? What was the threat of infection or even tetanus (lock Jaw) Fifty years later, 1930, on a farm near Martinsville, my father, ten at the time, acquired lock jaw or tetanus. The Doctor told my grandfather that his son had about a 1 in a hundred chances of surviving.