The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-06-28

'AS NA'~J PNS ~J I'LL CN ON
order of things. The clothes were hung along
with bacon, venison, etc., on pegs driven into the
wall. She never knew the comfort of a closet,
poor thing. Think of such a home the dwelling
place of the better classes, and you will doubtless
form a fair idea of domestic life in the times Of
Mrs. Boone. No wonder that superstition was
rife, and that there were good or i'll omens in all
nature. And are we who proclaim our civiliza-
ton and broad culture free from all superstition ?
Alas no, but do we implicitly trust and believe
every statement in the Bible as they did-for
In those days there were no infdels or agnostics.
Rude as life was there was an unwritten moral
code which the present status would do well to
adopt. eff a man failed to provide for his family
or stole from his neighbors, if he we're unduly
profane, shirked public duty, acted cowardly in
times of danger, if he we're careless about his
debts, failed to tell the truth in matters of bust
ness, or treated women with disrespect, he was
either ignored and Stunned by his n~eighbors or
else summarily forced to leave the community.
Busy as was Rebecca Boone's life, she found time
to care for the sick and distressed, and instructed
her children as best she could for there were no
schools then. Daniel Boone became FESTIVE as the
settlement increased and game decreased, his old
nature asserted itself and he took a long trip
through Florida, bought a house in Pensacola.
and came back for his family. Mrs. Boone re-
fused to go, and the house was left to commence
rate his pleasant visit to the land of flowers, how
ever the fever of adventure in his blood, which
neither his resolution nor his wife's influence
could suppress, impelied him in his roaming. An
old sycamore tree was standing a few years since
in eastern Tennessee, which furnished evidence
Of one of those journeys, for in its bark was
carved: I'D. Boone cilled a B A r on this tree
year 1850" Having heard of the wi1ds of Ken
lucky the backwoodsman's paradise he determined
to go, and all Mrs. Boone's entreaties availed
nothing, so she severed the ties of the past, sold
the effects of her own handiwork, and bidding
farewell to all that her woman's heart cherished.
she went with him, she knew not whittier. We
cannot realize the hardships or dangers of such
an adventure. Wild animals and wilder men of
the forest waited to entrap them. No roads, no
bridges, mountains to climb and rivers to swim.
Hers was a courageous soul. Onward they press
ed undaunted the pioneers of the unconquered
west. At last when the Walden Range had been
scaled and the worst of their journey passed, as
they thought, a band of savage Indians attacked
them and their eldest son was slain before her
eyes. Sadly they retraced their steps to Buells
Valley, forty miles back, to wait for reinforce
ments until spring. then they moved on, and
Daniel Boone was the first white man and his wife
the first white woman to settle in Kentucky. They
felled trees, built cabins, and thus was laid
the foundation of Boonsborough. She was a
model housekeeper in her old home, and her
training now asserted itself and her cabin in the
woods soon became a semblance of the home
which she had left, and lent a touch of civilian
ton to the calous wilderness; "as the practical
and ingenious housewife improvising an imple-
ment for reducing corn into meal by driving
nail holes through a piece of tin and fastening
it in a board; discovering a substitute for cotton