ove the other, and opened by sliding past each
other. The few dollars I had saved from my original stake and made
from the sale of hides, I spent, extravagantly, it seemed then, for
boards to make a door and lay a floor. That lumber cost nine dollars
per thousand feet on the job, and had to be hauled eleven miles from a
local sawmill--an exorbitant price that made a lasting impression on my
thrifty mind and left my old leather pouch flat. That same lumber
sells to-day for fifty-two dollars a thousand! Shades of Kit Carson!
How fortunate I lived near your time!

Built-in furniture is nothing new, "we pioneers" always used it! From
the odds and ends of planks left from the door and floor, I built a
wall seat, a chimney corner, a shelf cupboard and a bunk. My scanty
furnishings were all homemade--a rough, pine-board table, which served
for kitchen, dining and library purposes, and a bench which I always
"saved," using the floor before the hearth instead. "Aunt Jane"
insisted on giving me a featherbed to put on the rough slats of my
bunk, and some pieced quilts; I used my camp blankets for sheets. She
gave me, too, a strip of old rag carpet she had brought from her
Eastern home.

The crowning architectural feature of my mansion was the corner
fireplace, raised of the native granite bowlders. With what care I
selected the stones!--choosing those most richly encrusted with green
lichens, fitting each into its place, discarding many, ranging afar for
others to take their place. Chimney building is a job for an artisan,
and even then much of a gamble. Imagine my delight, then, when, the
last stone in place, I built a fire on my hearth, and it roared like a
furnace, and all the smoke went up, and out, the chimney! Later, the
eddying winds sometimes shot prankishly down it and playfully chased
the smoke back into the room, but this only blackened the stones,
giving my fireplace an air of antiquity.

My open fire was cook stove as well as heater. I added to my camping
utensils a Dutch oven, an iron pot with a heavy, deep-rimmed,
tight-fitting iron lid, and a tin basin. My furnishings were complete!

Long evenings I sat on the floor before my hearth, dreaming. Sometimes
I read, but the windy days outdoors, tramping and climbing, left me
relaxed and drowsy. I possessed, perhaps, a dozen books; among them
"Treasure Island," which I read over and over, with my door bolted. My
imagination gave piratical significanc