nnot always get in the backwoods. These they must obtain by barter. So
each family collects all the furs it can, and once a year, after the
harvest is gathered, loads them on pack-horses, which are driven across
the mountains to some large trading town on the seacoast. There the skins
are traded for the needed iron or salt.

Often many neighbors plan to go together on such a journey. Sometimes they
drive before them their steers and hogs to find a market in the east.

A bushel of salt costs in these early days a good cow and calf. Now, that
is a great deal to pay; and furthermore, as each small and poorly fed
pack-animal can carry but two bushels, salt is a highly prized article.
Since it is so expensive and hard to get, it has to be used sparingly by
the mountaineers. Therefore the housewife, instead of salting or pickling
her meat, preserves or "jerks" it by drying it in the sun or smoking it
over the fire.

The Tennessee settler, like Boone's followers in Kentucky, dresses very
much like the Indians, for that is the easiest and most fitting way in
which to clothe himself for the forest life he leads. And very fine do
many stalwart figures appear in the fur cap and moccasins, the loose
trousers, or simply leggings of buckskin, and the fringed hunting-shirt
reaching nearly to the knees. It is held in by a broad belt having a
tomahawk in one side and a knife in the other.

[Illustration: A Kentucky Pioneer's Cabin.]

While this free outdoor life develops strong and vigorous bodies, there is
not much schooling in these backwoods settlements. Most boys and girls
learn very little except reading and writing and very simple ciphering, or
arithmetic. If there are any schoolhouses at all, they are log huts, dimly
lighted and furnished very scantily and rudely.

The schoolmaster, as a rule, does not know much of books, and is quite
untrained as a teacher. His discipline, though severe, is very poor. And
he is paid in a way that may seem strange to you. He receives very little
in cash, and for the rest of his wages he "boards around" with the
families of the children he teaches, making his stay longer or shorter
according to the number of children in school.

In many ways, as you see, the life of the pioneer child, while it was
active and full of interest, was very different from yours. He learned,
like his elders, to imitate bird calls, to set traps, to shoot a rifle,
and at twelve the little lad became a foot soldier. H