primitive hotels, the farmers who had assembled from different parts
told their tales of prowess--some true stories and a good many lies.

Beside the ambitious house that gloried in a daub of red paint and
which had been pushed up to the aristocratic height of one and a half
or two stories, before which flapped in the wind a wide, white board
with the cheerful announcement, "Smith's Inn--Refreshments for Man or
Beast," stood a more modest structure. Brown, unpainted,
unclapboarded, it stood by the wayside. Its log walls were stuccoed
with mud, and in the wide mouth of the doorway was the brawny
housewife, bare-armed, peering from beneath a slatternly red
sun-bonnet, while over the doorway the passer-by read the letters in
red chalk upon a new pine shingle:

+-----------------+
| "CAKES AND BEER |
| FOR SALE HERE." |
+-----------------+

After the farmer had sold or bartered away his wheat or other produce,
he generally returned with a load of goods for the village merchant.




_CHAPTER III._


Prominent among the early settlers of Oneonta was Jacob Dietz, who
removed into the settlement from Schoharie county about the year 1804.