"I don't believe they'll let us go where we are a mind to," said Jim Grant: "all the reason they don't send out scouts now is 'cause they can't. There's so many wounded, there ain't enough men to go on the scout, and get the grain too; and they've got to get the grain, 'cause if they don't we won't have any thing to eat next winter."
Thus the children speculated respecting the future, and lightened their toil by building castles in the air.
CHAPTER VIII. TREADING OUT THE GRAIN.
During the past season, wheat and other grain had assumed in the eyes of the settlers a greater relative importance than ever before.
Wheat, oats, and barley could be raised abundantly on the burnt land; but hitherto there had been very little inducement to raise either of those grains, because they could not make use of them as articles of food to any extent, and they did not pay when carried to market.
Corn had heretofore been their main dependence: that they could pound, and make into bread. With corn they could keep and fatten swine; and, in time of peace, hams paid when carried to market on pack-horses; and pork was also the staple article of food.
But the Indians and the mill had effected a complete revolution. The different grains were now of more value to them than Indian corn, because they could grind the grain. The Scotch could have their oatmeal; and the others, wheat flour, barley, and rye, to mix with their corn-meal; and they were delivered from the drudgery of the hominy-block.
It was less work to sow grain than to plant corn and hoe it: therefore there was less exposure to Indians while doing it. Grain was not so much exposed to the depredations of crows, blue-jays, coons, squirrels, deer, and bears. Deer could be kept out by fences, but birds, bears, coons, and squirrels could not.