In the Days of Poor Richard

by Irving Bacheller

On the south side of a steep hill near them was a deep, hard frozen drift. Solomon cut the crust with his hatchet and began moving big blocks of snow. Soon he had made a cavern in the great white pile, a fathom deep and high, and as long as a full grown man. They put in a floor of balsam boughs and spread their blankets on it. Then they cut a small dead pine and built a fire a few feet in front of their house and fried some bacon and a steak and made snow water and a pot of tea. The steak and bacon were eaten on slices of bread without knife or fork. Their repast over, Solomon made a rack and began jerking the meat with a slow fire of green hardwood smoldering some three feet below it. The "jerk" under way, they reclined on their blankets in the snow house secure from the touch of a cold wind that swept down the hillside, looking out at the dying firelight while Solomon told of his adventures in the Ohio country.

Jack was a bit afflicted with "snow-shoe evil," being unaccustomed to that kind of travel, and he never forgot the sense of relief and comfort which he found in the snow house, or the droll talk of Solomon.

"You're havin' more trouble to git married than a Mingo brave," Solomon said to Jack. "'Mongst them, when a boy an' gal want to git married, both fam'lies have to go an' take a sweat together. They heat a lot o' rocks an' roll 'em into a pen made o' sticks put in crotches an' covered over with skins an' blankets. The hot rocks turn it into a kind o' oven. They all crawl in thar an' begin to sweat an' hoot an' holler. You kin hear 'em a mile off. It's a reg'lar hootin' match. I'd call it a kind o' camp meetin'. When they holler it means that the devil is lettin' go. They're bein' purified. It kind o' seasons 'em so they kin stan' the heat o' a family quarrel. When Injuns have had the grease sweat out of 'em, they know suthin' has happened. The women'll talk fer years 'bout the weddin' sweat."

Now and then, as he talked, Solomon arose to put more wood on the fire and keep "the jerk sizzling." Just before he lay down for the night, he took some hard wood coals and stored them in a griddle full of hot ashes so as to save tinder in the morning.

They were awakened in the night by the ravening of a pack of wolves at the carcass of the slain moose, which lay within twenty rods of the snow camp. They were growling and snapping as they tore the meat from the bones. Solomon rose and drew on his boots.

"Cat's blood an' gunpowder! I thought the smell o' the jerk would bring 'em," Solomon whispered. "Say, they's quite a passel o' wolves thar--you hear to me. No, I ain't skeered o' them thar whelps, but it's ag'in' my principles to go to sleep if they's nuthin' but air 'twixt me an' them. They might be jest fools 'nough to think I were good eatin'; which I ain't. I guess it's 'bout time to take keer o' this 'ere jerk an' start up a fire. I won't give them loafers nothin' but hell, if they come 'round here--not a crumb."

Solomon went to work with his ax in the moonlight, while Jack kindled up the fire.

"We don't need to tear off our buttons hurryin'," said the former, as he flung down a dead spruce by the fireside and began chopping it into sticks. "They won't be lookin' for more fodder till they've picked the bones o' that 'ere moose. Don't make it a big fire er you'll melt our roof. We jest need a little belt o' blaze eround our front. Our rear is safe. Chain lightnin' couldn't slide down this 'ere hill without puttin' on the brakes."

Soon they had a good stack of wood inside the fire line and in the pile were some straight young birches. Solomon made stakes of these and drove them deep in the snow close up to the entrance of their refuge, making a stockade with an opening in the middle large enough for a man to pass through. Then they sat down on their blankets, going out often to put wood on the fire. While sitting quietly with their rifles in hand, they observed that the growling and yelping had ceased.

"They've got that 'ere moose in their packs," Solomon whispered. "Now keep yer eye peeled. They'll be snoopin' eround here to git our share. You see."