rode thither on horseback behind her father, and after
the service her pillion was shifted to the bridegroom's steed.[37] If,
as generally happened, there was no church, the groom and his friends,
all armed, rode to the house of the bride's father, plenty of whisky
being drunk, and the men racing recklessly along the narrow
bridle-paths, for there were few roads or wheeled vehicles in the
backwoods. At the bride's house the ceremony was performed, and then a
huge dinner was eaten, after which the fiddling and dancing began, and
were continued all the afternoon, and most of the night as well. A party
of girls stole off the bride and put her to bed in the loft above; and a
party of young men then performed the like service for the groom. The
fun was hearty and coarse, and the toasts always included one to the
young couple, with the wish that they might have many big children; for
as long as they could remember the backwoodsmen had lived at war, while
looking ahead they saw no chance of its ever stopping, and so each son
was regarded as a future warrior, a help to the whole community.[38] The
neighbors all joined again in chopping and rolling the logs for the
young couple's future house, then in raising the house itself, and
finally in feasting and dancing at the house-warming.

Funerals were simple, the dead body being carried to the grave in a
coffin slung on poles and borne by four men.

There was not much schooling, and few boys or girls learnt much more
than reading, writing, and ciphering up to the rule of three.[39] Where
the school-houses existed they were only dark, mean log-huts, and if in
the southern colonies, were generally placed in the so-called "old
fields," or abandoned farms grown up with pines. The schoolmaster
boarded about with the families; his learning was rarely great, nor was
his discipline good, in spite of the frequency and severity of the
canings. The price for such tuition was at the rate of twenty shillings
a year, in Pennsylvania currency.[40]

Each family did every thing that could be done for itself. The father
and sons worked with axe, hoe, and sickle. Almost every house contained
a loom, and almost every woman was a weaver. Linsey-woolsey, made from
flax grown near the cabin, and of wool from the backs of the few sheep,
was the warmest and most substantial cloth; and when the flax crop
failed and the flocks were destroyed by wolves, the children had but
scanty covering to hide their na