huge hewed log standing on four legs; a pot, kettle, and skillet, and a few tin and pewter dishes were all the furniture. The boy Abraham Lincoln climbed at night to his bed of leaves, by a ladder of wooden pins driven into the logs."

"THE RAISING."

The professional architect did not bring his tracing paper and India ink to the backwoods. Nor did a contractor make his bid according to plans and specifications for the masonry, the wood-work, the plastering, and the painting.

The civilization of the pioneers had not differentiated such a thing as a carpenter, much less à plumber. The principle of coöperation prevailed, however, and every man was a Jack-at-all-trades.

When Farmer Sturdy and his good wife had selected a site for their new house and home, the neighbors were notified within a circuit of eight or ten miles to come to Sturdy's house-raising on such a Monday. Each man came with axe and handspike. Suitable logs, cut from the woods, were dragged to the building spot by oxen or horses. Strong men, with some mechanical skill, were stationed at the corners of the house to notch the logs and fit them together deftly as they were, one by one, lifted to their place.

The heavy work being done, the proprietor was left to finish as he could. No one expected pay for help. at a raising. The circulating currency of these hospitable days was work for work-exchange of muscular energy. The farmers lent a hand literally.

An excellent description of the log-cabin, as it appeared in Northern Ohio about the year 1809, was given by H. B. Curtis, in an address delivered in 1885 before

the Richland County Pioneer Society. Mr. Curtis says: "After a few days spent in an improvised shanty, or perhaps the interior of the covered wagon, the pioneer sets himself seriously to work in the construction of his log-cabin. Having selected his spot, the tall, straight young trees of the forest are to be felled, measured, cut, and hauled to the place; at the same time properly distributed to form the several prospective sides of the proposed structure. The 'skids' are provided upon which to run up the logs. The clapboards, rived from the cleanest white oak blocks, rough and unshaved, are made ready for the roof. Whisky, then about twenty-five cents per gallon, is laid in, and due notice is given to such neighbors as can be reached of the day appointed for the 'raising,

"When the time comes, and the forces collect together, a captain is appointed, and the men divided into. proper sections and assigned to their several duties. Four men most skillful in the use of the axe are severally assigned to each corner; these are the 'corner men,' whose duty it is to 'notch' and 'saddle'-as it were, like a dovetail-the timbers at their connection, and preserve the plumb, 'carrying up' the respective corners. Then there are the 'end men,' who, with strong arms, and the aid of pikes, force the logs up the 'skids' and deliver them to the corner men. In this way the building rises with wonderful rapidity ; the beamers for the roof logs are adjusted; the broad clapboards laid with skill, the weight-poles' placed upon the successive courses, and the shell of the cabin is completed. The frolic is ended and a good supper crowns the day's work. Then follow the 'puncheon' floor, made of heavy planks split from timber and

dressed on one side with an axe; the big log fire-place; the beaten clay hearth; the stick and clay chimney; the 'clinking' and 'daubing;' the paper windows, and the door with wooden latch and hinges. And so the log-cabin home is made ready, and the family moves in with as much joy and delight as may fill their hearts when, twenty years later, they enter their now stately frame or brick mansion erected on the same spot."

The above is the primitive log-cabin; but it was subject to many modifications and degrees of advanced pretensions. The cabin might be single or double, with a gangway between, covered by a common roof. It was made of hewed logs, or "scutched," which was superficial hewing made after the building was up. So, too, its elevation was suited to the condition of the family; and sometimes the corners squared or dressed down; and perchance the clapboards nailed on, when so luxurious an article as nails could be obtained, in lieu of the "weight-poles."

Governor Reynolds recorded that the floors of the first houses in Illinois were the natural earth beat solid, or the earth with puncheons in the middle of the room to cover the "potato-hole," or a complete surface of puncheons. The "potato-hole" was an important receptacle in the rude dwellings of the backwoodsman. An old gentleman of Leesburg, Highland County, Ohio, told the writer of this sketch that he remembered being deposited, with three other children, in the potato-hole of his mother's house near Leesburg during a violent storm, which blew the roof from the cabin and whirled the "long-string" clock across the room. This was in 1826.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

LOG-CABIN LIFE IN THE VALLEY OF THE BEAUTIFUL RIVER.

"THE HOOSIER'S NEST."

The pioneer's cabin of Indiana, with its furnishings and happy family, was graphically and amusingly pictured in words by John Finley, in lines entitled "The Hoosier's Nest."

THE HOOSIER'S NEST.

I'm told, in riding somewhere West,
A stranger found a Hoosier's nest,
In other words a Buckeye cabin,
Just big enough to hold Queen Mab in.
Its situation, low, but airy,

Was on the borders of a prairie;

And fearing he might be benighted,
He hailed the house and then alighted.
The Hoosier met him at the door,
Their salutations soon were o'er.
He took the stranger's horse aside,
And to a sturdy sapling tied;
Then, having stripped the saddle off,
He fed him in a sugar-trough.

The stranger stooped to enter in,
The entrance closing with a pin;
And manifested strong desire
To sit down by the log-heap fire,
Where half a dozen hoosieroons,

With mush and milk, tin-cup; and spoons,

White bread, bare feet, and dirty faces,
Seemed much inclined to keep their places;
But madam, anxious to display

Her rough but undisputed sway,

Her offspring to the ladder led,
And cuffed the youngsters up to bed.
Invited shortly to partake

Of venison, milk, and johnny-cake,
The stranger made a hearty meal,

And glances round the room would steal.
One side was lined with divers garments,
The other, spread with skins of varmints;
Dried pumpkins overhead were strung,
Where venison hams in plenty hung;
Two rifles placed above the door,
Three dogs lay stretched upon the floor-
In short, the domicile was rife
With specimens of Hoosier life.
The host, who center'd his affections

On game, and range and quarter sections,
Discoursed his weary guest for hours,
Till Somnus' all-composing powers,
Of sublunary cares bereft 'em ;

And then I came away and left 'em.

The subject is a favorite one with the Western man. "The Cabin in the Clearing" is the title of a volume by the Indiana poet Benjamin S. Parker. The following is from Parker's realistic description of the remembered pioneer home.

"And I mind the floor of puncheons
Rudely laid on joist and sill,
And the fire-place shaped and beaten
From the red clay on the hill;
With the chimney standing outside,
Like a blind man asking alms,

Wrought of sticks and clay, and fashioned
By the builder's ready palms.