Pioneers of the Old Southwest [10]
the community chiefly because the Indian danger necessitated swift building and made group action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. Nothing in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's dictation into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for the "raising," the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women with their pots and kettles. Every child toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden dishes and spoons. These free givers of labor had something of the Oriental's notion of the sacred ratification of friendship by a feast.
The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched and grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up the pioneer's dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the whole of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; and, when these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof was supported by two crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay and moss. Lastly, spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The door was made thick and heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the windowpanes? They were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease.
When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of "Dinner!" Their morning had not been less busy than the men's. They had baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled venison steaks; and--above all and first of all --they had concocted the great "stew pie" without which a raising could hardly take place. This was a disputatious mixture of deer, hog, and bear--animals which, in life, would surely have companioned each other as ill! It was made in sufficient quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was done. At supper the men took their ease on the ground, but with their rifles always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were one day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the cabin and on the group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, it puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the men--who have just declared, through the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End and their abiding place.
There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor days, especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms defying winter's lingering look. This bush--or tree, indeed, since it is not afraid to rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab apple--might well be considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in those regions where the white silence covers the earth for several months and shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the
The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched and grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up the pioneer's dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the whole of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; and, when these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof was supported by two crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay and moss. Lastly, spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The door was made thick and heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the windowpanes? They were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease.
When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of "Dinner!" Their morning had not been less busy than the men's. They had baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled venison steaks; and--above all and first of all --they had concocted the great "stew pie" without which a raising could hardly take place. This was a disputatious mixture of deer, hog, and bear--animals which, in life, would surely have companioned each other as ill! It was made in sufficient quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was done. At supper the men took their ease on the ground, but with their rifles always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were one day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the cabin and on the group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, it puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the men--who have just declared, through the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End and their abiding place.
There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor days, especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms defying winter's lingering look. This bush--or tree, indeed, since it is not afraid to rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab apple--might well be considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in those regions where the white silence covers the earth for several months and shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the