Having arrived safely in November, all set vigorously to work to provide a shelter against the winter. Young Abe was healthy, rugged, and active, and from early morning till late evening he worked with his father, chopping trees and cutting poles and boughs for their "camp." This "camp" was a mere shed, only fourteen feet square, and open on one side. It was built of poles lying upon one another, and had a thatched roof of boughs and leaves. As there was no chimney, there could be no fire within the enclosure, and it was necessary to keep one burning all the time just in front of the open side.
In this rough abode the furniture was of the scantiest and rudest sort, very much like what we have already observed in Boone's cabin. For chairs there were the same kind of three-legged stools, made by smoothing the flat side of a split log, and putting sticks into auger-holes underneath. The tables were of the same simple fashion, except that they stood on four legs instead of three.
The crude bedsteads in the corners of the cabin were made by sticking poles in between the logs at right angles to the wall, the outside corner where the logs met being supported by a crotched stick driven into the ground. Upon this framework, shucks and leaves were heaped for bedding, and over all were thrown the skins of wild animals for a covering. Pegs driven into the wall served as a stairway to the loft, where there was another bed of leaves. Here little Abe slept.
In the space in front of the open side of the cabin, hanging over the fire, was a large iron pot, in which the rude cooking was done. These backwoods people knew nothing of dainty cookery, but they brought keen appetites to their coarse fare. The principal vegetable was the ordinary white potato, and the usual form of bread was "corn-dodgers," made of meal and roasted in the ashes. Wheat was so scarce that flour bread was reserved for Sunday mornings. But generally there was an abundance of game, such as deer, bears, and wild turkeys, many kinds of fish from the streams close by, and in summer wild fruits from the woods.
During this first winter in the wild woods of Indiana little Abe must have lived a lonely life. But it was a very busy one. There was much to do in building the cabin which was to take the place of the "camp," and in cutting down trees and making a clearing for the corn-planting of the coming spring. Besides, Abe helped to supply the table with food, for he had already learned to use the rifle, and to hunt and trap animals. These occupations took him into the woods, and we must believe, therefore, in spite of all the hardships of his wilderness life, that he spent many happy hours.
If we could see him as he started off with his gun, or as he chopped wood for the fires, we should doubtless find his dress somewhat peculiar. He was a tall, slim, awkward boy, with very long legs and arms. In winter he wore moccasins, trousers, and shirt of deerskin, and a cap of coonskin with the tail of the animal hanging down behind so as to serve both as ornament and convenience in handling the cap. On a cold winter day, such a furry costume might look very comfortable if close-fitting, but we are told that Abe's deerskin trousers, after getting wet, shrunk so much that they became several inches too short for his long, lean legs. As for stockings, he tells us he never wore them until he was "a young man grown."
But although this costume seems to us singular, it did not appear so to his neighbors and friends, for they were used to seeing boys dressed in that manner. The frontiersmen were obliged to devise many contrivances to supply their lack of manufactured things. For instance, they all used thorns for pins, bits of stone for buttons, and home-made soap and tallow-dipped candles. Candles, indeed, were a luxury much of the time, and in Abe's boyhood, he was obliged in the long winter evenings to read by the light of the wood fire blazing in the rude fireplace of the log cabin.
Lincoln Studying.