Page:Letters of Life.djvu/288

276 history of hirelings. One of mine, thus trained, became a respected teacher, and habitant of our fair, growing West; and another, who was a model of fidelity and piety, became the wife of an honored Mayor of our city.

For the household accounts, which were entrusted to me, an early training had given fitness and facility. Having acquired a fair handwriting, and some knowledge of arithmetical computation, at the age of eight my father accepted my assistance in keeping his books, a weakness of the eye, caused by the measles, making any continued use of the pen painful. As he held for some time the office of Town Surveyor, I was initiated into the mysteries of debt and credit, and gratified by being installed as a species of deputy book-keeper. He required a very clear chirography, and tolerated no blots or erasures; and the attention to accuracy thus inculcated in childhood, has been an advantage throughout life. By him I was also induced to commence, at eleven, in a manuscript book for that purpose, a statement of all my own expenditure, however small, a habit which I have continued without interruption to the present day.

I was happy that my husband should have the benefit of these financial proclivities, at a time when they were apposite and serviceable. Indeed, I have often wondered how so many of my own sex, especially housekeepers, should so often neglect, and even testify