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 c