planks, or logs split into three or four strips, called puncheons,
were pegged with wooden nails on the sides, or ends, where doors
or windows were to be made.

Then the space inside this framework was sawed out, and behold
you had a doorway, or the opening for a window, to be filled in
afterward as time and material with which to work might permit.

After this had been done, the ends under the roof were covered
with yet more logs, sawn to the proper length and pegged together,
until, save for the crevices between the timbers, the whole gave
protection against the weather.

Then came the work of thatching the roof, which was done by the
branches of trees, dried grass, or bark. My master put on first
a layer of branches from which the leaves had been stripped, and
over that we laid coarse grass to the depth of six or eight inches,
binding the same down with small saplings running from one side to
the other, to the number of ten on each slope of the roof. To me
was given the task of closing up the crevices between the logs with
mud and grass mixed, and this I did the better because Nathaniel
Peacock worked with me, doing his full share of the labor.



KEEPING HOUSE


When we came ashore from the ships, no one claimed Nathaniel as
servant, and he, burning to be in my company, asked Captain Smith's