re not permitted in former days to be cut up idly
by careless use; many townships forbade by law the use of narrow sleds
and sleighs. The roads were narrow at best; often when two sleighs met
the horses had to be unharnessed, and the sleighs lifted past over each
other. On lonely hill-roads or straight turnpikes, where teamsters could
see some distance ahead, turnouts were made where one sleigh could wait
for another to pass.

After there had been a heavy fall of snow and the roads were well
broken, the time was always chosen where any logging was done to haul
logs to the sawmill on ox-sleds. An interesting sled was used which had
an interesting name,--chebobbin. One writer called it a cross between a
tree and a bobsled. It was made by a close and ingenious adaptation of
natural forms of wood, which made excellent runners, cross-bars, etc.;
they were fastened together so loosely that they readily adjusted
themselves to the inequalities of the wood-roads. The word and article
are now almost obsolete. In some localities chebobbin became tebobbin
and tarboggin, all three being adaptations in nomenclature, as they
were in form, of the Indian toboggan or moose-sled,--a sledge with
runners or flat bottom of wood or bark, upon which the red men drew
heavy loads over the snow. This sledge has become familiar to us in the
light and strong Canadian form now used for the delightful winter sport
of tobogganing.

On these chebobbins great logs were hitched together by chains, and
dragged down from the upland wood-lots. Under these mighty loads the
snow-tracks got an almost icy polish, prime sledding for country
sleighing parties. Sometimes a logging-bee was made to clear a special
lot for a neighbor, and a band of wood-choppers worked all day together.
It was cheerful work, though the men had to stand all day in the snow,
and the thermometer was below zero. But there was no cutting wind in the
forest, and the exercise kept the blood warm. Many a time a hearty man
would drop his axe to wipe the sweat from his brow. Loose woollen
frocks, or long-shorts, two or three over each other, were warm as are
the overlapping feathers of a bird; a few had buckskin or sheepskin
waistcoats; their hands were warmly covered with home-knit mittens. In
later days all had heavy well-greased boots, but in the early years of
such pioneer settlements, as the towns of New Hampshire and Vermont,
all could not afford to wear boots. Their place was well supp