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give him a pair of blue glasses and other matching bumps and bruises. The following day he packed his trunk and left after which Hans Jørgen was put in charge of the farm, a position he held until the day he died. The first of May 1853 is when I started working for a farmer named Jens Nielsen in Vallebo. I was paid 27 crowns a year, and it was here I learned to plough for his son who by the way understood the farm quite well. He was a capable plough driver who would make fun of me when my furrows weren't straight enough. However, besides the plowing and everything else that needed doing, the son and I also needed to transport limestone in order to cover our villenage requirements. The route went from the Faxe limestone quarry to Faxe Ladeplads, a distance of 3/4 of a Danish mile. Each of us brought two loads a day and even though we lived quite a ways off of our delivery route we still went home for lunch each day. However, our snacks we would pack and eat in route. We also had our flasks with us containing a shot for each one of us. We always ended up going through downtown Faxe on our route. On this particular route there was an inn and we

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had to stop there each time we passed for some cognac, which was French moonshine and cost 4 schilling per glass and came with a piece of white ginger on the side. I quickly went through eight schilling a day just for me and that was far more than what my income could support. So I needed to lean on my mother for support and she was nice enough to be of assistance, on top of already supplying me with clothes. Part of my job there was to tend to the horses and clean out the cow barn each day before breakfast. After that I was supposed to cut feed for the four horses, and what I was unable to cut then I had to get back to around mid-day, but the horses always got their feed. The son, who was a musician always practiced at night and he had three sisters who were around my age. We would dance every night down by the kitchen door, so that we could familiarize ourselves with the new dances and songs. We were eager to learn so that we might be able to teach others how to dance when we attended parties. In that capacity we were pretty much professional dance instructors. However, one night when we were practicing for a big dance social, the old lady who sat next to the wood burner running her spinning wheel, put everything aside