and plenty of deer.

[Illustration: The Christmas tree with its homemade gifts.]

The clothing gave us more trouble, as but little money came to us for
the small quantity of produce we had to spare. I remember one winter
when we were at our wits' ends for shoes. We just could not get money to
buy shoes enough to go around, but we managed to get leather to make
each member of the family one pair. We killed a pig to get bristles for
the wax-ends, cut the pegs from alder log and seasoned them in the oven,
and made the lasts out of the same timber. Those shoes were clumsy, to
be sure; but they kept our feet dry and warm, and we felt thankful for
them and sorry for some neighbors' children, who had to go barefooted
even in quite cold weather. Carrie once had a pair of nice white shoes
"for best," I remember, that one of her brothers made for her, with
buckskin uppers and light tan-colored soles.

You must not think that we had no recreation and that we were a
sorrowful set. There was never a happier lot of people than these same
hard-working pioneers and their families. We had joy in our home life,
and amusements as well as labor.

Music was our greatest pleasure. We never tired of it. "Uncle John," as
every one called him, the old teacher, was constantly teaching the
children music; so it soon came about they could read their music as
readily as they could their school books.

No Christmas ever went by without a Christmas tree, at which the whole
neighborhood joined. The Fourth of July was never passed without a
celebration. We made the presents for the tree if we could not buy them,
and supplied the musicians, reader, and orator for the celebration.
Everybody had something to do and a voice in saying what should be done,
and that very fact made all happy.

[Illustration: _Brown Bros._

A dairy farm in Washington, where once the forest stood.]

It was sixteen miles to our market town, Steilacoom, over the roughest
kind of road. Nobody had horse teams at the start; we had to go with ox
teams. We could not make the trip out and back in one day, and we did
not have money to pay hotel bills. We managed in this way: we would
drive out part of the way and camp; the next morning we would drive into
town very early, do our trading, and if possible, drive back home the
same day. If not able to do this, we camped on the road again. But if
the night was not too dark we would reach home that night. And oh, what
an appetite we