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a year. Those 28 days would consist of every Monday and Tuesday in each of the fourteen weeks between Midsummer Day and Michaelsmas. St. Hansdag - 24th of June, Mikkelsdag - 29th of September. This agreement stood fast for ten years but then discourse grew between us and out of an act of revenge he demanded that from here on out I owed him 34 days a year. I flat out refused and that was that. 

The last few years that I was in Orup I lacked a permanent plowman, which is what we used to call it. However, I managed to get my driving done through my various jobs and it was cheaper than it used to be. Meanwhile, we arrived at the 11th of February 1865 which was when Maria was born. During the winter I just worked my butt off as one might say. It has to be understood that for every 24 barrels of germ we threshed, we received one barrel of seed. However, after a few years it changed and we each ended up getting ten barrels. One winter I threshed for twelve Schilling a day but it didn't work out. Then one day my brother in law tells me I should become a merchant. Which was all good and fine, but how would it work since I had no money. Then Hans Petersen tells me:"I have a horse and a wagon which you can get on credit if your brother Hans Jørgen then could lend you 100 crowns. Then I'd lend you what you would need

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of the one hundred after the horse and the wagon had been deducted. So I managed to get the 100 crowns from H. Jørgen and forty from H Petersen. That's how I started out as a chicken peddler. I bought all the things that the peasants were selling, with the exception of seed, and drove everything to Copenhagen whenever I had a full load. Everything probably would have been just fine had I only stuck to selling nothing but chickens. However, I was hoping to make some real money so I also started selling general mercantile wares (groceries). When I had sold all of my load in Copenhagen I would spend all the money on groceries that mother then sold out of our house. It so happened that I got all of my money tied up in too much merchandise that wasn't selling quickly enough. This resulted in me not having enough cash on hand to do business. Another thing setting me back was the fact that mother wasn't feeling well for a long time and I wasn't able to leave her side. However, then on the 5th of February 1868 Lisbeth was born and mother recovered. By that time the business was pretty much at a standstill and by the time summer rolled around I had given up completely. I had set up a bowling alley in my backyard, and the young people in the area were putting it to good use. It so happened that during the use of said bowling alley I saw an opportunity to sell a lot of Bavarian beer, as well as brandy (which was illegal).