The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

CHAPTER XXV.

A MINISTER'S HOUSE A FREE HOTEL - MY HOSPITALITY
TRESPASSED UPON--I TRY MY HAND AT TAILORING -
A REMARKABLE PAIR OF TROUSERS.
Connecticut Thrift - The Stafford Parish - We become House-owners -
Transforming our Desolate Purchase into a Place of Beauty - Our
House Headquarters for all Itinerants - "It is nothing when you
get used to it! " - The Ominous Summons of the Door-Bell - The
"State Missionary" and his Wife --A Proceeding that took my
Breath away - My Dilemma - Friends come to my Rescue - Leading my Uninvited Guests to the Spare Chamber - "I knew that
Horse and Chaise in a Moment, and have come to help you "Prodigious Work - Getting Settled - Our Need of Economy - How
I paid for the " National Era" - Earning the Money for it by a job
of Tailoring - Making a Pair of Trousers for my Husband--" Whoever heard of making Trousers that way? "- My Husband's Astonishment.
T HE nearest railroad station to the town of Stafford was
Palmer, Massachusetts, on the Boston & Albany Railroad, fourteen miles distant. The town covered a large
area, territorially, its population must have been less than
three thousand, and its industries were both manufacturing
and agricultural. Its manufactures of cotton and cloth had
caused the formation of three or four villages in the town,
that in no wise resembled the factory villages of to-day; for
the operatives were wholly American, most of them owned
stock in the factories, as well as their homes, and all of
them were interested in town affairs. The managers of the
factories resided in the town, were personally acquainted
with their employes, were men of character and position,
and leaders in all that related to church and school matters,
and to the development of the town, morally and socially.
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