Letter from Anna Briggs Bently, 1826

From Foster, Emily. The Ohio Frontier. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996. 164.

The Cabin 8th Mo 17th 1826

5th day night [Thursday]

My dear friends

...This has been a most laborious week to me washing, baking, scouring, cooking & I have been constantly on my feet. I feel very tired now and look forward to tomorrow as a treat for I have a great pile of patching to do that I can sit down to--and I have 4 and 1/2 loaves baked and pies enough. I have had many calls from neighbors since 1st day [Sunday]....It is customary here for neighbors to go out and help at what they call a logrolling, that is rolling in long heaps with levers the largest size logs and then piling on the brush and firing it[.] All their pay is to go home and take supper with them

3rd day [Tuesday] the 22nd [of August]

Well I get on slowly with my letter but you can have no idea of the constant variety of engagements I have and I now know how to make allowances for the poor black people who can not keep awake when they sit down of an evening. But I sometimes shead tears of thanksgiving when I find how much I am made capable of doing cheerfully. My beloved mother, thy prayers have been heard--the hearts of strangers have inded seemed to be turned toward us in a manner wonderful to me, not in empty professions but in real substantial acts of kindness I will give some instances [.] [M]y cow in jumping a low fence tore open one of her teats the whole length [.] [W]e could not milk her at night In the morning I went over to friend Millers (1/4 of a mile) for a little tallow to grease it and to know what to do. Friend Miller was very busy but she immediately left all and came through the dew to milk her, which she accomplished in spite of her kicking, by making a kind of pew in a fence corner [.] One of the girls came and milked her in the evening [.] Friend Miller says let them know whenever I have more work to do than I can easily get through with and some of them will come and help [.] They supply me with beans, potatoes, cucumbers in abundance, also apples, and peaches, and roasting ears. This is the way she talks [:] "now do send over for any vegetable and any thing thee stands in need off[.] Thee must not be any ways backward with us more than thy own people I know just how it is with you, new beginners have all to buy till they can make for themselves and I want thee to feel welcome and always at home here [.] I want our intercourse to ripen into a friendship, not of a day but permanent. Come, that is thy hen and chickens I will have them a rooster caught and sent over and I have a tub of soap for thee when I can get it over...."