n some pack a
wool blanket, but usually the chief covering on the bed is the dried skin
of some animal: deer, bear, or perhaps buffalo.

There is plenty of food, though of course it is plain and simple,
consisting mostly of game. Instead of the pork and beef which are largely
eaten in the east, we shall find these settlers making their meal of
bear's meat or venison.

For flour corn-meal is used. Each family has a mill for grinding the
kernels into meal, while for beating it into hominy they use a crude
mortar, made perhaps by burning a hole in the top of a block of wood.

Bread-making is a simpler matter with them than with us, for a dough of
corn-meal is mixed on a wooden trencher and then either baked in the ashes
and called ash-cake or before the fire on a board and called johnny-cake.
Corn-meal is also made into mush, or hasty pudding; and when the settler
has cows, mush-and-milk is a common dish, especially for supper.

For butter the settlers use the fat of bear's meat or the gravy of the
goose. Instead of coffee, they make a drink of parched rye and beans, and
for tea they boil sassafras root.

Every backwoodsman must be able to use the rifle to good effect, for he
has to provide his own meat and protect himself and his family from
attack. He must be skilful also in hiding, in moving noiselessly through
the forests, and in imitating the notes and calls of different beasts and
birds. Sharp eyes and ears must tell him where to look for his game, and
his aim must be swift and sure.

But most important of all, he must be able to endure hardship and
exposure. Sometimes he lives for months in the woods with no food but meat
and no shelter but a lean-to of brush or even the trunk of a hollow tree
into which he may crawl.

Deer and bear are the most plentiful game; but now and then there is an
exciting combat with wolves, panthers, or cougars, while prowling Indians
keep him ever on his guard. The pioneer must be strong, alert, and brave.

Each family depends upon itself for most of the necessaries of life. Each
member has his own work. The father is the protector and provider; the
mother is the housekeeper, the cook, the weaver, and the tailor. Father
and sons work out-of-doors with axe, hoe, and sickle; while indoors the
hum of the spinning-wheel or the clatter of the loom shows that mother and
daughters are busily doing their part.

There are some articles, however, like salt and iron, which the settlers
ca