Her eyes were
extraordinarily gentle.
The Butterworth house on Medina Road stood back of an apple orchard and
there was a second orchard beside the house. The Medina Road ran south from
Bidwell and climbed gradually upward toward a country of low hills, and
from the side porch of the Butterworth house the view was magnificent.
The house itself was a large brick affair with a cupola on top and was
considered at that time the most pretentious place in the county.
Behind the house were several great barns for the horses and cattle. Most
of Tom Butterworth's farm land lay north of Bidwell, and some of his fields
were five miles from his home; but as he did not himself work the land it
did not matter. The farms were rented to men who worked them on shares.
Beside the business of farming Tom carried on other affairs. He owned two
hundred acres of hillside land near his house and, with the exception of
a few fields and a strip of forest land, it was devoted to the grazing
of sheep and cattle. Milk and cream were delivered each morning to the
householders of Bidwell by two wagons driven by his employees. A half mile
to the west of his residence there was a slaughter house on a side road and
at the edge of a field where cattle were killed for the Bidwell market. Tom
owned it and employed the men who did the killing. A creek that came down
out of the hills through one of the fields past his house had been dammed,
and south of the pond there was an ice house.
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