s a loose smock or tunic, reaching nearly to the knees, and held in
at the waist by a broad belt, from which hung the tomahawk and
scalping-knife.[27] His weapon was the long, small-bore, flint-lock
rifle, clumsy, and ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was very
heavy, and when upright, reached to the chin of a tall man; for the
barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet in length, while the stock was
short, and the butt scooped out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimes
ornamented. It was generally bored out--or, as the expression then was,
"sawed out"--to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirty or forty,
to the pound; and was usually of backwoods manufacture.[28] The marksman
almost always fired from a rest, and rarely at a very long range; and
the shooting was marvellously accurate.[29]

In the backwoods there was very little money; barter was the common form
of exchange, and peltries were often used as a circulating medium, a
beaver, otter, fisher, dressed buckskin or large bearskin being reckoned
as equal to two foxes or wildcats, four coons, or eight minks.[30] A
young man inherited nothing from his father but his strong frame and
eager heart; but before him lay a whole continent wherein to pitch his
farm, and he felt ready to marry as soon as he became of age, even
though he had nothing but his clothes, his horses, his axe, and his
rifle.[31] If a girl was well off, and had been careful and industrious,
she might herself bring a dowry, of a cow and a calf, a brood mare, a
bed well stocked with blankets, and a chest containing her
clothes[32]--the latter not very elaborate, for a woman's dress
consisted of a hat or poke bonnet, a "bed gown," perhaps a jacket, and a
linsey petticoat, while her feet were thrust into coarse shoepacks or
moccasins. Fine clothes were rare; a suit of such cost more than 200
acres of good land.[33]

The first lesson the backwoodsmen learnt was the necessity of self-help;
the next, that such a community could only thrive if all joined in
helping one another. Log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings,
corn-shuckings, quiltings, and the like were occasions when all the
neighbors came together to do what the family itself could hardly
accomplish alone. Every such meeting was the occasion of a frolic and
dance for the young people, whisky and rum being plentiful, and the host
exerting his utmost power to spread the table with backwoods
delicacies--bear-meat and venison, vegetable