appearance of a farm. The temporary shanty had given place to a
comfortable log cabin; and although the chimney was built of small
sticks placed one on the other, and filled in between with clay,
occupying almost one whole end of the cabin, it showed that the inward
man was duly attended to; and the savory fumes of venison, of the
prairie hen and other good things went far to prove that even backwoods
life was not without its comforts. [Footnote: The author has often heard
his mother say that the most enjoyable period of her life was in a
pioneer home similar to the above.]

In a few months, the retired cabin, once so solitary, became the nucleus
of a little settlement. Other sections and quarter sections of land were
entered at the land office by new corners. New portions of ground were
cleared, cabins were erected; and in a short time the settlement could
turn out a dozen efficient hands for house raising or log rolling. A saw
mill soon after was erected at the falls of the creek; the log huts
received a poplar weather boarding, and, as the little settlement
increased, other improvements appeared; a mail line was established, and
before many years elapsed, a fine road was completed to the nearest
town, and a stage coach, which ran once, then twice a week, connected
the settlement with the populous country to the east of it.

This was the life the hero of this story began. It might be said to be
an unromantic life; yet such a life was known to many of our American
ancestors. It had its pleasures as well as its pains. It had its poetry
as well as its prose, and its joys as well as its sorrows. The vastness
of the forest and depths of the solitude by which he was surrounded,
made its impress on his mind. He grew up in ignorance of tyranny and
many of the evils of the great cities.