Sitting on a stump, Eli reflects on his situation. The province’s school system is just being established and conditions are difficult. Eli is a bachelor, always changing schools and struggling with unemployment, sickness, homelessness, and “mischievous and stubborn” students of all ages whose attendance is irregular. He teaches near his parents’ home, then in Portland, and then further away in North Crosby Township. In 1852, he moves to Illinois and then Iowa where he marries and farms for the rest of his life.