The Real America in Romance, Volume 10 | Page 4

been
placed side by side, forming what was termed corduroy roads. The axe
and rifle of the emigrant, or mover as he is still termed in the west,
were brought daily and almost hourly into use. With the former he cut
saplings, or small trees, to throw across the roads, which, in many
places, were almost impassable; while with his rifle he killed squirrels,
wild turkeys, or such game as the forest afforded, for their provisions
were in a few days exhausted. If, perchance, a buck crossed his path,
and he brought it down by a lucky shot, it was carefully dressed and
hung up in the forks of the trees; fires were built, and the meat cut into
small strips and smoked and dried for future subsistence.
As they advanced, the road through the woods became more difficult to
travel, the trees being merely felled and drawn aside, so as to permit a
wheeled carriage to pass; and the emigrant was often obliged to be
guided in his route only by the blaze of the surveyor on the trees, and at
every few rods to cut away the branches which obstructed his passage.
As the stroke of the axe reverberated through the woods, no answer
came back to assure him of the presence of friend or foe. At night in
these solitudes, they heard the wolves stealing through the gloom,
sniffing the scent of the intruders; and now and then, then bloodshot
eyes of the catamount glared through the foliage.
Days, weeks and months passed in this toilsome journey through the

wilderness, so indelibly impressing it on the memory of Fernando
Stevens, that he never, to his dying day, forgot that journey. At last
they arrived at the landmarks which, to Albert Stevens, indicated the
proximity of his possessions. A location for the cabin was selected near
a small stream of running water, on the south side of a slight elevation.
No time was lost. The trees were immediately felled, and in a short
time Fernando, looking out from the covered wagon, perceived a clear
space of ground of but few rods in circumference. Stakes, forked at the
top, were driven into the ground, on which the father placed logs, and
the chinks between these were stopped with clay. An enclosure was
thus hastily thrown up to protect the family from the weather, and the
wife and children were removed to this improvised abode. The trunks
of the trees were rolled to the edge of the clearing, and surmounted by
stakes driven crosswise into the ground: the severed tops and branches
of trees piled on top of the logs, thus forming a brush fence. By degrees
the surrounding trees were "girdled" and killed. Those that would split
were cut down and made into rails, while others were left to rot or
logged up and burned.
A year showed a great improvement in the pioneer's home. Several
acres had been added to the clearing, and the place began to assume the
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