After the ague-fit had gone off, I obtained some refreshing sleep, and awoke in the morning with no other consciousness of malady than a slight degree of languor: it amounted to nothing more. In the course of the day my dear child was buried, and we spent the afternoon in worship and resignation. On Monday we again rose early to our labour, and our work proceeded cheerily; but for upwards of a fortnight I had a return every third day of the nauseous and depressing ague, which so impaired my strength, that I began to lose my relish of life. My arms, which were never strong, became almost powerless, and I often wept from weakness.

At last our new house was finished; less completely so than the first temple, but still it was a place of refuge, it was home; and, as soon as we were fairly in possession, we cast about us, and began to make it so indeed. My health, about the same time, improved, so that towards the end of October, when the public works of the settlement were suspended for the season, we were in some condition to encounter the winter without dread.

The long nights and the wet weather, in which no man could work, set me to reflect on the melancholy want we were in of a schoolmaster. I had thought of it often before, but it pressed stronger and stronger for consideration, when I saw my two industrious sons hanging listlessly on the wet days over the fire, and the evenings wasted in unprofitable conversations. Sometimes I thought of addressing the agent with a petition on the subject, signed by the generality of the inhabitants, begging his mediation with the speculators or some help to pay one; at others, I proposed to call a public meeting, to see what could be done among ourselves in the way of subscription.