Now I have in my mind's eye a view of my mother's front room. Ah! there is the door on the south with its wooden latch and leather string. East of the door is a window, and under it stands a wooden bench, with a water pail on it; at the side of the window hangs the tin dipper. In the corner beyond this stands the ladder, the top resting on one side of an opening through which we entered the chamber. In the centre of the east end burned the cheerful fire, at the left stood a kettle, pot and bread-kettle, a frying pan (with its handle four feet long) and griddle hung over them. Under the north window stood a table with its scantling legs, crossed, and its whitewood board top, as white as hands and ashes could scour it. Farther on, in the north-west corner stood mother's bed, with a white sheet stretched on a frame made for that purpose, over it, and another at the back and head. On the foot and front of the frame were pinned calico curtains with roses and rosebuds and little birds, some perched on a green vine that ran through the print, others on the wing, flying to and from their straw colored nests. These curtains hung, oh, how gracefully, around that bed! They were pinned back a little at the front, revealing a blue and white coverlet, of rare workmanship. In the next and last corner stood the family cupboard. The top shelves were filled with dishes, which mother brought from the state of New York. They were mostly blue and white, red and white and there were some on the top shelf which the children called their "golden edged dishes."
The bottom of the cupboard was inclosed; by opening two small doors I could look in. I found not there the luxuries of every clime, but what was found there was eaten with as much relish as the most costly viands would be now. It was a place I visited often. In hooks attached to a beam overhead hung two guns which were very frequently used. A splint broom and five or six splint bottomed chairs constituted nearly all the furniture of this room. Before that cheerful fire in one of those chairs, often sat one making and mending garments, little and big. This she did with her own hands, never having heard of a sewing machine, as there were none in existence then. She had to make every stitch with her fingers. We were not so fortunate as the favored people of ancient times; our garments would wax old.
Mother made a garment for father to work in which he called his frock. It was made of linen cloth that she brought from the State of New York. It was like a shirt only the sleeves were short. They reached half way to his elbows. This he wore, in place of a shirt, when working hard in warm weather. Southeast of the house father dug into the ground and made him an out door cellar, in which we kept our potatoes through the winter without freezing them. We found it very convenient.
Father wanted a frame barn very much but that was out of his reach. We needed some place to thrash, and to put our grain and hay, and where we could work in wet weather, but to have it was out of the question, so we did the next best thing, went at it and built a substitute. In the first place we cut six large crotches, went about fourteen rods north of the house, across the lane, dug six holes and set the two longest crotches in the center east and west. Then put the four shorter ones, two on the south and two on the north side so as to give the roof a slant. In the crotches we laid three large poles and on these laid small poles and rails, then covered the whole with buckwheat straw for a roof. We cut down straight grained timber, split the logs open and hewed the face and edges of them; we laid them back down on the ground, tight together and made a floor under the straw roof.
This building appeared from a distance something like a hay barrack. Now we had a sort of thrashing-floor. Back of this we built a log stable. So the north side was enclosed but the east and west ends and the south side were open. We had to have good weather when we threshed with our flails, as the snow or rain would blow right through it. It was a poor thing but the best we had for several years, until father was able, then he built him a good frame barn. It stands there on the old place yet (1875). I often think of the old threshing floor. When I got a nice buck with large horns I cut off the skull with the hide, so as to keep them in a natural position, and nailed them on the corners of our threshing floor in front. The cold and storms of winter did not affect them much. There they remained, mute and silent, to guard the place, and let all passers by know that a sort of a hunter lived there. Father had good courage and worked hard. He bared his arms and brow to the adverse winds, storms, disappointments, cares and labors of a life in the woods. He said, if he had his health, some day we would be better off. In a few years his words of encouragement proved true. He fought his way through manfully, like a veteran pioneer, raised up from poverty to peace and plenty. This he accomplished by hard labor, working days and sometimes nights.
One time father wanted to clear off a piece of ground for buckwheat by the first of July. He had not much time in which to do it. We had learned that buckwheat would catch and grow very stout on new and stumpy ground. Sometimes it filled very full and loaded heavy. It was easily gathered and easily threshed, and helped us very much for our winter's bread. One night after supper, father sat down and smoked his pipe; it was quite dark when he got up, took his ax in his hand and went out. We all knew where he had gone. It was to put up his log heaps, as he had some burning. Mother said, "We will go and help pick up and burn." When we started, looking towards the woods, we could see him dimly through the darkness. As we neared him we could see his bare arms with the handspike in his hands rolling up the logs. The fire took a new hold of them when he rolled them together. The flames would shoot up bright, and his countenance appeared to be a pale red, while thousands of sparks flew above his head and disappeared in the air. In a minute there was an awkward boy at his side with a handspike, taking hold and doing the best he could to help, and there was mother by the light of the fires, who a short time before in her native home, was an invalid and her life despaired of, now, with some of her children, picking up chips and sticks and burning them out of the way.
We were well rewarded for our labor. The buckwheat came up and in a little time it was all in bloom. It put on its snow white blossoms, and the wind that caressed it, and caused it to wave, bore away on its wings to the woods the fragrance of the buckwheat field.
The little industrious bee came there with its comrades and extracted its load of sweet, then flew back to its native home in the forest. There it deposited its load, stored it away carefully against the time of need. Nature taught the bee that a long, cold winter was coming and that it was best to work and improve the time, and the little fellow has left us a very bright example to follow.