Willmar tribune., 1905-04-12
CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.
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 rude bark shanty that had a
partition of blankets. living in this
primitive manner until my father and
D'ri had felled the timber and built
log house. We brought flour from Ma
lone-a dozen sacks or more-and
while they were building l 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 a
jug Of rum. I 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
'Hee, oh, hee!' as they lifted eacn
heavy log to it's place and grew noisier
quahing the odorous red rum, that had
mighty good look to me, although
my father would not hear of my tast-
ing it. When it was all over there
was nothing to pay but our gratitude.
While they were building hunks l
went of to sawmill with the oxen
for boards and shingles. Then, short
ly, we had roof over us and floors
to walk on and that luxury D'ri called
"pyaz,' although it was not more
than mere shelf with a roof over it.
We chinked the logs with moss and
clay at first, putting up creased paper
In the window spaces. For months we
knew 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 lin long, bushy windrows, heap
ing them up with brush and small
wood when the chopping was over.
That done, We fired the rows, filing
the deep of heaven with smoke, as it
seemed to me, and lighting the night
with great billows 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 l was sturdy
and could swing the ak to line, and
felt joy in seeing the chips fly. But
my father kept an eye ON me, and held
me back as with a leash.
My mother was often sorely tried
for the lack of things common as dirt
these better days. Frequently our
only baking-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 deer's tallow,
bears grease. or raccoon's oil served
for shortening, and the leaves of the
wild raspberry for tea. Our neighbors
went to mill at Canton-a journey of
dve days, going and coming, with an
OK team, and beset with many difficult
ties. Then one of them followed the
Top of a stump for his mortar and tied
dis peatle to the bough of tree. With
rope he drew the bough down, which,
rs it sprang back, lifted the pestle that
ground his grain.
But money was the rarest of all
things In our ncighborhood those days.
Pearlaah, black-salts, West India pipe
slaves and RATS of timber brought
cash, but no other products of the
early settlcr. Late that fall my mother
gave dance, a rude but hearty pleas
uring that followed a long conference
in which my father had a part. They
all agreed to turn to, after, snowfall, on
the river-land, cut raft of timber,
and send it to Montreal in the spring.
Our things had come, including D'ri's
fiddle, so that We had chairs and bed
steads and other accessories of life
not common among our neighbors.
My mother had few jewels and some
ine old furniture that her father had
given her-really beautiful things,
have since come to know-and she
showed them to those simple folk with
4 mighty pride in her eyes.