the aid of a tin grater. The
furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and
spoons, but mostly of wooden bowls and trenchers and noggins. If these
last were scarce, gourds and hard shell squashes made up the deficiency.

"I well remember the first time I ever saw a tea cup and saucer. My
mother died when I was six or seven years of age. My father then sent me
to Maryland to go to school. At Bedford, the tavern at which my uncle
put up was a stone house, and to make the changes still more complete,
it was plastered on the inside both as to the walls and ceiling. On
going into the dining-room, I was struck with astonishment at the
appearance of the house. I had no idea that there was any house in the
world that was not built of logs. But here I looked around and could
see no logs, and above I could see no joists. Whether such a thing had
been made by the hands of man, or had grown so of itself, I could not
conjecture. I had not the courage to inquire anything about it. When
supper came on, my confusion was worse confounded: A little cup stood in
a bigger one with some brownish-looking stuff in it, which was neither
milk, hominy, nor broth. What to do with these little cups, and the
spoons belonging to them, I could not tell. But I was afraid to ask
anything concerning the use of them."

Daniel Boone could see from the door of his cabin, far away in the west,
the majestic ridge of the Alleghany mountains, many of the peaks rising
six thousand feet into the clouds. This almost impassable wall, which
nature had reared, extended for hundreds of leagues, along the Atlantic
coast, parallel with that coast, and at an average distance of one
hundred and thirty miles from the ocean. It divides the waters which
flow into the Atlantic, from those which run into the Mississippi. The
great chain consists of many spurs, from fifty to two hundred miles in
breadth, and receives in different localities, different names, such as
the Cumberland mountains, the Blue Ridge, etc.

But few white men had ever as yet ascended these summits, to cast a
glance at the vast wilderness beyond. The wildest stories were told
around the cabin fires, of these unexplored realms,--of the Indian
tribes wandering there; of the forests filled with game; of the rivers
alive with fishes; of the fertile plains, the floral beauty, the
abounding fruit, and the almost celestial clime. These stories were
brought to the settlers in the broken lan