family from another, as they sought rest in the single cabin room. An anecdote related by an Englishman will illustrate the meagre utilities of the pioneer. He was sojourning in the Western Reserve in the early days of the nineteenth century. His host in order to provide sufficient room at his humble table, unhinged his only door and put it in place of the bench ordinarily used by the family for that purpose. The generous meal of hoe cake, a brown ration of bacon, venison, potatoes and pumpkin pie doubtless obliterated the memory of all inconveniences and made him at peace with the world.

As soon as practicable after the arrival of the emigrant and family, a day was set by his future neighbors for a "house-raising" upon the land he had chosen to make his home. This was an event in pioneer life. It was one of those occasions when a community of labor was at the same time an instance of hospitality and a time of general merry-making and rejoicing. It was one of those events which stuck warmly in the memory of all concerned, and was related with much gusto long years after to grandchildren.

On the appointed day the neighborhood gathered to build the log cabin. A party volunteered as woodchoppers, whose business it was to fell the trees and cut them to the proper length. A man with a team was at hand to haul them, or if the logs were close by, a log chain was attached and they were “snaked" to the cabin site. The logs were assorted and placed in convenient places for the builders. A carpenter, if there was one, searched the woods for a proper log for making clap-boards for the roof. It must be

straight grained and three or four feet in diameter. These boards were split about four feet long and were used without planing or shaving. Another party was employed in preparing "puncheons" for the floor of the cabin. These were split logs hewn and smoothed with a broad ax.

These materials for the cabin were usually prepared the first day; the second was devoted to the "house raising." Four experts were placed at the corners, whose duties were to notch and place the logs. The rest of the company furnished them with timbers and laid the puncheon floor. An opening was left in the wall about three or four feet wide for the door and another for the window, and one wider than the rest for the broad chimney to be built outside of the cabin at the back end. This chimney was built of logs lined with stone or plastered thick with sticks and straw or grass. This plaster served for "chinking"—that is, for filling the interstices between the logs in the walls. The roof of clapboards was held down by logs placed lengthwise and bound firmly to the structure. Not a nail was used, wooden pegs doing service instead.

Now after all the labor came the reward that was to seal the good-will and friendship so well begun. The owner for whom this was done gave a "house warming." The same neighbors all gathered, and such feasting, singing, gossip and dancing does not grace and warm the hearts of this tussling age of the world. We can only look back upon it and our imaginations echo in a minor key the free, wholesome, unconventionalized happiness of those olden days. The wrinkled faces of our grandfathers and grandmothers

flush with joy as they recall such scenes; for perhaps it was at one of them that the delicate cords of love began first to attune their heart strings.

As soon as practicable the farmer, for that was what the emigrant had now become, fashioned a rough puncheon table, some three legged stools, for three legs adjusted themselves better than four to the uneven floors. Later these stools were associated with the hickory backed splitbottomed chairs familiar even now, as relics. The primitive beds of the early pioneer were wide, low platforms, built in a convenient corner. As the family grew, a puncheon floor was built on the rafters, and a ladder led to the bedroom in the shallow loft. Long wooden pins were driven into the log walls, which supported shelves upon which were displayed pewter plates, basins and spoons scoured bright. Sometimes an eight by ten inch looking-glass sloped against the wall over the towel roller. Pots in time accumulated and were hung under the shelves, and a gun hung on a hook near the door. A clumsy shovel and a pair of tongs with loose joints and one shank straight, so that a blood blister followed a pinch by a careless handler, stood by the fire place. A spinning wheel and working tools found a place, when not in use, in the corner. Wearing apparel and extra bedding hung on pegs along the wall, and in winter strings of dried apples and peaches lined the rough rafters. In the very early days glass was unobtainable, and greased paper admitted a dim light from the only window. Before supplies began coming down the Ohio River, or facilities existed for home manufacture, candles were rare, and their place was supplied by the

burning of pine or hickory knots, or the grease "dip"; or if it was winter, the roaring fire in the wide fireplace afforded the only light. Then the days were full of weary toil, and soon after night fall the people fell to rest. Their evenings were short and light was not long in demand.

The cooking was all done on an open fire. The three legged Dutch oven with iron lid, spiders, skillets, and the everlasting iron pot were the chief agencies for frying, boiling, baking, and roasting. A pair of fowls, a turkey, or a joint of meat were often hung up in front of the fire by a strong cord, and some child was kept busy turning it so it would roast well, and turning himself so that he wouldn't.

The daily baking was done in the Dutch oven with a bed of glowing coals under it and on the lid; the biscuits were baked in the covered spider; the pot hung from the crane for boiling. Corn meal was molded into "Johnny" cakes which were baked on a slanting board before the fire; if packed in cabbage leaves and cooked in the ashes, it was called ash cake. But the chief baking was done out of doors in a clay oven kept heated with chips and wood.

Those were indeed wretched who were reduced to "hog and hominy." The whole family, women, boys and men labored hard and long. The keen appetites seldom failed to find a simple but sumptuous meal, one that was sweet even in memory. In early days venison and bear meat were not rare, and the garden patch. furnished roasting ears, cabbage and potatoes. It was not long before milk and butter were plentiful, and chickens, geese and turkeys soon became so. Corn

meal took the place of flour, but salt was scarce and costly. These pioneers were a sturdy race sturdily fed, and grew strong and forceful enough to withstand difficulties, to which a less hardy people would have succumbed.

The dress of the pioneer was very plain and generally made of a fabric spun by the women of the family. The wool of the few sheep, which almost every farmer kept, and the flax that grew in the flax patch furnished the materials. The wool was carded and the flax pulled and dressed, and both were spun and woven into the family linsey garments of the day. The young women felt themselves well dressed in a "linsey" gown, being commonly worn at church, singing school and frolics. The young men, in summer, wore shirts and pantaloons made of coarse linen woven from the best grade of the flax. Before the facilities for manufacturing "fullers" cloth and the "stogie" boot came to hand, their winter dress was deer skin leggings and moccasins, worn with a heavy linsey blouse or shirt. In summer, men, women and children pursued their daily labors barefooted. Indeed, foot-wear was accounted so much of a burden that maidens would "tote" their shoes to church, stop just before getting there at some convenient place along the road, put on their shoes and stockings and after church, take them off again. Their shoes were doubtless coarse and tight and hurt their freedom-loving feet.

Before cloth could be spun and crops gathered, a clearing had to be made in the forests for the fields. This could hardly be called a clearing at first, for the underbrush and small trees were cut and burned,