yard. The visitors contributed from their meagre store such additional
dishes, knives, forks, and spoons as were needed. Around the table,
seated on benches, stools, or splint-bottom chairs, with such
appetites as could only be gained from honest toil in the open field,
the company partook of the bounties set before them. These consisted,
in addition to the never-failing corn-bread and bacon, of bear and
deer meat, turkey, or other game in season, and an abundance of
vegetables which they called "roughness." The bread, styled
"jonny-cake," was baked on journey or "jonny" boards, about two feet
long and eight inches wide. The dough was spread over the boards which
were then placed before the fire; after one side was browned, the cake
was reversed and the unbaked side turned toward the flames.

However strictly it might be abstained from at other times, a harvest
without whisky was like a dance without a fiddle. It was partaken of
by all--each one, male and female, drinking from the bottle and
passing it to his or her nearest neighbor. Drinking vessels were
dispensed with as mere idle superfluities.

Dinner over, the company scattered, the elders withdrawing in a body
and seating or stretching themselves upon the ground.

After the filling and lighting of the inevitable pipe, conversation
would become general. The news of the day--not always, as may be
imagined, very recent--was commented upon, and then, as now, political
questions were sagely and earnestly discussed. Stories, mainly of
adventure, were told; hairbreadth escapes from Indian massacre
recounted and the battles of late wars fought again beneath the
spreading branches of the trees. Meanwhile, the boys and girls
wandered off in separate and smaller groups, singing and playing and