the sea board to the West was hard and dangerous. Exposure and the general harsh frontier conditions combined to weed out the weakling and the faint hearted.

In this westward movement there were three general classes of emigrants. First, was the pioneer who engaged in rude agriculture, but spent most of his time in hunting and fishing. When other settlers came in, he felt crowded, sold his claim under the pre-emption law, and pushed further westward. The second class, or the settlers, bought government land or squatter claims, built log houses furnished with glass windows and brick chimneys, and erected school houses and mills. The third class, men of capital and enterprise, followed the farmers.

The members of the first class are of interest here. The men wore hunting shirts, waist coats, and pantaloons of rough stuff. The women dressed in coarse cotton gowns and used sunbonnets almost continually, especially when company was present. The cabins in which these pioneers lived were crude affairs. The roof was made of clapboards four feet by six to eight inches wide and one half inch thick. Puncheons for the floor were made by splitting trees eighteen inches in diameter into slabs two to three inches thick and hewn on the upper surface. The doorway was made by cutting out the logs after raising, and putting upright pieces of timber at the sides. Shutters were made of clapboards, pinned on cross pieces,

hung by wooden hinges and fastened by wooden latches. When all was ready, the neighbors collected for the house raising. Four men stationed at the corners notched logs together while the rest raised them. The roof was formed by shortening each end log in succession till one log formed the comb. Clapboards, held down by poles or small logs, were used to cover all cracks. The chimney was built of sticks of wood, the largest at the bottom and the smallest at the top, the whole being cemented with mud or clay mortar. Interstices between logs were chinked with strips of wood and daubed with mortar both inside and out. Once in a while, a double

cabin might be seen. It consisted of two such buildings with a space of ten or twelve feet between, over which the roof extended. A log house was better. It differed from the cabin in that the logs were hewn on two sides before raising, the roofs were framed and shingled, and the chimneys of stone or brick. Moreover, it had windows, tight floors, and was frequently clapboarded on the outside and plastered within. Nails and glass window panes were not needed.

The furniture matched the house. The table was usually made of a split slab and supported by four round legs. Chairs were equally crude. Clapboards supported by pins stuck to the logs served as shelves for table furniture. Plates were of pewter or tin, and hunting knives sometimes took the place of the regular table knives. Bed

steads were often made in the corner of the room by sticks placed in the logs, and supported at the outer corner by a post, on which clapboards were laid. The ends of these clapboards entered the wall between the logs and supported the bedding. In some instances all the family of both sexes with the strangers who might arrive lodged in the same room. In that case, however, the undergarments were never taken of, and no consciousness of indelicacy was manifested. The few pins stuck in the wall of the cabin displayed the dresses of the women and the hunting shirts of the men. Peck's description of a meal in one of these pioneer homes deserves quoting entire:

18

"Our landlady having nothing in the shape of a table substituted a box. On this she spread a cloth that might have answered any other purpose than a table cloth. The table furniture was various. For knives two or three hunt

ing knives answered. The plates were broken or melted pewter ones, except a single earthen one with a notch broken out, which, with a broken fork, was placed for the "stranger' to use. We could readily have excused the kind old lady for this extra trouble; for being dimsighted, in washing, or more strictly in wiping it, she had left the print of her fingers on the upper surface.

The viands now only need description to complete this accurate picture of real squatter life. The rancid bacon when boiled could have been detected by a fœtid atmosphere across the yard, had there been one. The snap-beans, as an accompaniment, were not half-boiled. The sour butter milk taken from the churn, where the milk was kept throughout the whole season, as it came from the cow was 'no go.'

18 Peck, J. M. A New Guide for Emigrants to the West, 114-120.

The article on which the traveller made a hearty breakfast, past ten o'clock in the morning, was the corn boiled in fair water.

"" 'According to universal custom among the squatter race, the men eat first, the women followed, and, if the company were numerous, the youngsters and children followed in regular succession.

"We give this portraiture as a fair specimen of hundreds of families we found scattered over the extreme settlement in 1818-19.'' 14

As time went on, however, houses, customs, and even roads improved. Nevertheless, the latter continued poor for a long time. The people were often far from town, and news spread slowly. One of the principal causes of this delay was the bad roads. These often gave rise to laughable incidents. On one occasion, while Peter Cartwright was riding near Springfield, Illinois, he stopped at a little country store. Here he noticed two young men and a young woman who soon left the building. A little later, Cartwright mounted his lame pony and started on his way. After he had gone a short distance, he drew near these young people who were in a good wagon drawn by a fine team. They then began to shout and to sing the good old Methodist tunes. One young man fell down on his knees, groaning, whereupon his companions shouted, "Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Glory to God! Glory to God! other sinner's down." At first

An

Cartwright

14 Babcock, Rufus. Memoir of John Mason Peck, D.D. Edited from His Journals and Correspondence, 102, 103.

thought that they were sincere, but he soon detected laughter. He tried to pass his tormentors, but they whipped up. He slowed down. So did they. All the time they kept up the chorus of "Glory to God! Glory to God! Another sinner's down." The old circuit rider was highly indignant. He wanted to horsewhip the boys, but held back because of the girl. Suddenly a gleam of hope came to him. He thought of a bridle path around a deep mudhole and a stump in the road just ahead. By taking the cut he could perhaps get away from his tormentors. He tried. They whipped up, and in their anxiety to continue the fun, raced through the mud unmindful of their clothes and the white dress of the girl, and forgetful of the stump just at the edge of the deep mudhole. One of the front wheels mounted the stump, and as the wagon overturned, the two boys jumped, sinking almost to their waists. The girl did likewise, but she fell flat in the mud and water, with her mouth and the whole of her face immersed in the dirty slime. Here she would have smothered if the boys had not helped her out. Cartwright turned, when he saw what had happened, rode to the edge of the mudhole, reared in his stirrups, and shouted: "Glory to God! Glory to God! Halleluiah! Another sinner's down! Glory to God! Halleluiah! Glory! Halleluiah!" Then, after he had become tired of shouting, he said:

"Now you poor, dirty, mean sinners, take this as a just judgment of God upon you for your meanness, and repent