arrival of a new settler, or, perhaps, a wedding.
There were almost no tools. Iron was
made so dear by the costly transit upon
packhorses, over mountains and through forest,
that it was used only for making and repairing
ploughs and the most necessary farming
utensils. Hinges and fastenings were made
of wood; and even the use of iron nails was
thought extravagant. They made their own
clothes in their own huts; for they would
not own an article brought in to them from
without. Shoes were commonly worn only
during half the year, and boots, when a new
comer brought them on his feet, were stared
at and ridiculed. Hats were of course not
tolerated, nor fine linen, nor broadcloth; and
he was a bold pioneer who dared to appear in
any coat on which there was a button more
than would be absolutely needed. Back
buttons, wrist buttons, or the useless second
row of breast buttons, were not to be regarded
by a pioneer with patience.

As these primitive men of the frontier had
nothing to do with carpentry, masonry or
upholstery, and there was no plumber, painter,
or glazier among them, they of course kept
very primitive establishments. Every man
had a hatchet, a rifle, and a butcher knife;
and there was in a settlement perhaps one
public saw and an auger, to be used at the
raising of a log cabin. The cabin floor was
of earth, into which very luxurious or
enterprising families stamped some of the staves
split out of puncheons, and they split
puncheons up for shutters when they wanted
them. The inside of this eligible one-roomed
family residence was fitted up with a sound
puncheon supported on four legs, capable of
being used as a bench, a table, or a bucket
There were one or two rough-hewn bedsteads,
and some chairs and stools to match. The
walls were tapestried with the dresses of the
women, and the clothes and arms belonging
to the men. I should not forget to say that
the original log cabin contained also a
spinning-wheel and very frequently a loom. The
men procured the raw material of dress and
food; the women spun, and wove, and
cooked it.

The first settlers in Tennessee raised, in a
favourable climate, admirable herds of cattle,
and were indebted for the abundance of their
bread, and for a good deal of their security
in eating it, to Indian corn. Dr. Ramsay,
from whose excellent "Annals of Tennessee,"
published at Charleston, we are gathering the
information here set down, is very eloquent on
maize, and very amply sets forth its importance
in the story of the early settlers. The frontier
settlements, he says, could not have been held
without it. Its certainty, the little
preparation of the soil required for it, the small
care needed while it grows, and the speed
with which it runs on to maturity, are all
important points in its favour as the staple
food in a disturbed border country. Then,
when mature, it yields most beautifully; the
very pith of its stalk is eatable; and, when
that is taken out, the stalk pressed between
rollers, yields what they call corn-stalk
molasses. Then again the ripe crop may without
hurt be very much neglected. The whole
community might quit the harvest to go on an
expedition against Indians, yet the ripe corn
would remain safe upon the stalk, even if left
standing throughout the winter. Smut or
weavil never touched it; no snow-storms
could do it any harm. Furthermore, when
the crop was gathered at the owner's leisure,
it was easily husked, or it need not be husked
at all until it was wanted. Then the ripe
maize might be prepared for food in scores of
forms. It was good roasted or boiled, whole
or grated. Poets unborn shall sing of mush,
of pone, of hoe-cake, and of dodgers; of mush
that is good with milk, or that is good with
molasses, or that is good with butter, or that
is good with honey, or that is good with
gravy. Maize again gives no trouble to the
grinder, and requires no apparatus, for it is
always relished best when it is coarsely
ground. It needs no costly mill, no bolting
cloth. The uses of corn grain like this —highly
nutritious —to the old pioneers are obvious
enough. If the Indians came down upon the
settlement, the fighing pioneers required no
troublesome provisioning. Every man parched
a peck of corn, and put it partly into his
wallet, and partly into his pockets; then he
took up his rifle, mounted his horse, and was
ready for campaign. If the whole body
capable of bearing arms had to turn out,
women and children could undertake so light
a labour as the raising of the maize crop. If
there came too many new settlers, the corn
ripened so fast that there was soon bread in
plenty for them. If an autumnal intermittent
fever, the certain frontier plague among the
clearings, laid even an entire settlement upon
its back, it did not stop the harvesting, for
harvest was so early that according to the
common order of things the crop was in
before the fever came.

The sports of the old frontier men were, of
course, all of the rough or manly kind, such
as hunting, shooting, tomahawk-throwing.
They did not, like modern settlers now,
play cards or pitch dollars. They were not
without music; many of them performed
upon the bugle, fife, or drum; and, when a
fiddler came among them, they ran after him
as fishes ran to gape at Orpheus.

The rough manners of the men were
pleasantly reflected in the boys, when after a
time there was to be found such a thing as a
chance schoolmaster here and there in the
settlement. He built his log hut near a
spring, for boys thirst very much over their
lessons; and they behaved well enough in
ordinary times, but then even they had their
"institutions." It would have been certainly
a simple institution to establish it as a rule
that there should be, as there always was, a
week's holiday at Christmas. They went