s bought a small
cook stove for which we paid, I believe, a hundred or a hundred and fifty
dollars. There were two griddle holes in it and a small oven in which one
loaf of bread could be baked at a time. It was an old affair that here
would not bring more than it would come to as old iron, but to us it was a
great treasure. We arranged among ourselves to take turns cooking upon it,
for instance one would have the first use of it one day, and then the next
day he would be the last to use it, and so each in their turn would have
the first chance to cook for one day.

Those who had the last chance would have a pretty late breakfast, dinner
and supper, for it would take each one at least half an hour to get a
meal. Those who had no means of cooking their rations, would come and beg
the privilege of setting their tin cups on our stove to warm their coffee,
which was usually made out of burnt rye or peas, and sometimes of scorched
wheat bran.

Every morning the whole surface of the stove would be covered with these
tin cups during the whole time the stove was in use; and even after the
different messes had all got through it would be engaged by outside
parties for nearly the whole day, each taking their turns in the order
that their applications were made. Of course those who owned a share in
the stove always took precedence if they wished to do any extra cooking or
baking during the day. We often used to make griddle cakes for breakfast,
either out of our corn bread rations soaked up in water with a little corn
meal added, or mixed up with flour and water with sometimes an egg
stirred in if we could afford it, but as eggs were twelve to fifteen
dollars a dozen this expensive luxury was dispensed with most of the time.

The two large Peckham stoves for warming the room were always in use, the
boys hanging their pails by hooked wires against the hot sides so that,
especially in the morning, they would be completely encircled with these
hanging pails, and there would always be a crowd waiting for the next
chance. Some would hold their cups by the handle against the stove,
changing hands whenever it became too hot, and others would stand, holding
a pail out on a stick run through the bale.

Quarrels were frequent over their turns, for all were tenacious of their
rights, and there, as here, some were always ready for a quarrel, and very
jealous of their rights and watchful lest they were trespassed upon.

There were at least