The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1904-11-19
D'ri and I
BY IRVING BACHELOR
Author Of Eben Holden Darrell Of the Blessed Isles ETC.
Copyright 1901, BY Lo.Arsp Publishing Company,
CHAPTER II.

June was half over when we came
to our new home in the town Of
Madrid-then home only for the
foxes and the fowls of the air and
their wild kin of the forest. The road
ran through a little valley thick with
timber and rock-bound within a mile
of us, all comfortably settled in small
log houses. For temporary use We
built a rude bark shanfy that had a
partition of blankets, living In this
primitive manner until my father and
D'ri had felled' the timber and built a
log house. We brought flour from Ma
One--a dozen sacks or more-and
while they were building had to
supply my mother with fish and game
and berries for the table--a thing easy
enough 10 do in that land of plenty.
When the logs were cut and hewn i
went away, horseback, to Canton for
jug o. rum. | was all day and half the
night going and coming, and fording
the Grasse took me stirrups under.
Then the neighbors came to the rails
ing-a jolly company that shouted
"Hce, OH heel" as they lifted each
heavy log to its place and grew noiser
quafling the odorous red rum, that had
mighty good look to me, although
my father would not hear of my tast-
ing it. When 1t was all over there
was nothing to pay but our gratitude.
While they were building hunks |
went off to sawmill with the oxen
for boards and SHINGLES Then. short
~. we had roof over lis and floors
to walk on and that luxury D'ri called
''pyaz," although II was not more
than mere shelf with roof over il.
We chinked the logs with moss and
Ia the window spaces. For months we
know not the luxury of the glass pane.
That summer we changed work"
with the neighbors and after we had
helped them awhile they turned to in
the clearing of our farm. We felled the
trees in long. bushy windows, heap
ing them up with brush and small
wood when the chopping was over
That done, We fred the rows. filing
the deep of heaven with smoke, as it
seemed TO me, and lighting the night
with great pillows of flame.
BY mid-autumn we had cleared to
the stumps strip half down the val
ley from our door Then we turned
TO on the land of our neighbors, my
time counting half, for | was sturdy
and could swing the ak to line, and
felt joy in seeing the chips fly. But
my father kept an eve on me, and held
me back as with leash.
My mother was often sorely tried
for the lack of things common as dirt /
these better days. Frequently our |
only bakng-powder was white lye,
made by dropping ash-cinders into
water. Our cinders were made by
letting the sap of green timber drip |
into hot ashes. Often deers tallow, |
bears grease, or raccoon's oil served !
for shortening, and the leaves of the |
Wild raspberry for tea. Our neighbors |
wen; to mill at Canton-a journey OF |
five days, going and coming, with an
OK team. and beset with many difficult
ties. Then one of them followed the /
top OF stump for his mortar and tied |
his pestle to the bough of tree. With
a rope he drew the bough down, which
as It sprang back lifted the pestle that
ground his grain.
But money was the rarest Of all /
things in our neighborhood those days.
ptarlash black-salts. West India pipe