hard and smooth.

The settlers had no stoves, but did their cooking in round pots called
Dutch ovens. They roasted their meats on a spit or steel bar like the
ramrod of a gun. The spit was kept turning before the fire, presenting
first one side of the meat and then the other, until it was thoroughly
cooked. Turning the spit was the children's work.

South of the palisade enclosing the barn was the clearing--a tract of
twenty or thirty acres of land, from which Mr. Brent had cut and burned
the trees. On this clearing the stumps stood thick as the hair on an
angry dog's back; but the hard-working farmer ploughed between and
around them, and each year raised upon the fertile soil enough wheat and
corn to supply the wants of his family and his stock, and still had a
little grain left to take to Brookville, sixty miles away, where he had
bought his land, there to exchange for such necessities of life as
could not be grown upon the farm or found in the forests.

The daily food of the family all came from the farm, the forest, or the
creek. Their sugar was obtained from the sap of the sugar-trees; their
meat was supplied in the greatest abundance by a few hogs, and by the
inexhaustible game of which the forests were full. In the woods were
found deer just for the shooting; and squirrels, rabbits, wild turkeys,
pheasants, and quails, so numerous that a few hours' hunting would
supply the table for days. The fish in the river, as I told you, fairly
longed to be caught.

One day Mrs. Brent took down the dinner horn and blew upon it two strong
blasts. This was a signal that Little Balser, who was helping his father
down in the clearing, should come to the house. Balser was glad enough
to drop his hoe and to run home. When he reached the house his mother
said:

"Balser, go up to the drift and catch a mess of fish for dinner. Your
father is tired of deer meat three times a day, and I know he would like
a nice dish of fried redeyes at noon."

"All right, mother," said Balser. And he immediately took down his
fishing-pole and line, and got the spade to dig bait. When he had
collected a small gourdful of angle-worms, his mother called to him:

"You had better take a gun. You may meet a bear; your father loaded the
gun this morning, and you must be careful in handling it."

Balser took the gun, which was a heavy rifle considerably longer than
himself, and started up the river toward the drift, about a quarter of a
mile away.