ainst
surprise. But to open assault they were practically impregnable, and
they therefore offered a sure haven of refuge to the settlers in case of
an Indian inroad. In time of peace, the inhabitants moved out, to live
in their isolated log-cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trails
led through the dark forests from one station to another, as well as to
the settled districts beyond the mountains; and at long intervals men
drove along them bands of pack-horses, laden with the few indispensable
necessaries the settlers could not procure by their own labor. The
pack-horse was the first, and for a long time the only, method of
carrying on trade in the backwoods; and the business of the packer was
one of the leading frontier industries.

The settlers worked hard and hunted hard, and lived both plainly and
roughly. Their cabins were roofed with clapboards, or huge shingles,
split from the log with maul and wedge, and held in place by heavy
stones, or by poles; the floors were made of rived puncheons, hewn
smooth on one surface; the chimney was outside the hut, made of rock
when possible, otherwise of logs thickly plastered with clay that was
strengthened with hogs' bristles or deer hair; in the great fire-place
was a tongue on which to hang pot-hooks and kettle; the unglazed window
had a wooden shutter, and the door was made of great clapboards.[15] The
men made their own harness, farming implements, and domestic utensils;
and, as in every other community still living in the heroic age, the
smith was a person of the utmost importance. There was but one thing
that all could have in any quantity, and that was land; each had all of
this he wanted for the taking,--or if it was known to belong to the
Indians, he got its use for a few trinkets or a flask of whisky. A few
of the settlers still kept some of the Presbyterian austerity of
character, as regards amusements; but, as a rule, they were fond of
horse-racing, drinking, dancing, and fiddling. The corn-shuckings,
flax-pullings, log-rollings (when the felled timber was rolled off the
clearings), house-raisings, maple-sugar-boilings, and the like were
scenes of boisterous and light-hearted merriment, to which the whole
neighborhood came, for it was accounted an insult if a man was not asked
in to help on such occasions, and none but a base churl would refuse his
assistance. The backwoods people had to front peril and hardship without
stint, and they loved for the moment t