_A Backwoodsman._
"We visited one farm, which interested us particularly from its wild and
lonely situation, and from the entire dependence of the inhabitants upon
their own resources. It was a partial clearing in the very heart of the
forest. The house was built on the side of a hill, so steep that a high
ladder was necessary to enter the front door, while the back one opened
against the hill-side; at the foot of this sudden eminence ran a clear
stream, whose bed had been deepened into a little reservoir, just opposite
the house. A noble field of Indian corn stretched away into the forest on
one side, and a few half-cleared acres, with a shed or two upon them,
occupied the other, giving accommodation to cows, horses, pigs, and
chickens innumerable. Immediately before the house was a small potato
garden, with a few peach and apple trees. The house was built of logs, and
consisted of two rooms, besides a little shanty or lean-to, that was used
as a kitchen. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with good beds,
drawers, &c. The farmer's wife, and a young woman who looked like her
sister, were spinning, and three little children were playing about. The
woman told me that they spun and wove all the cotton and woollen garments
of the family, and knit all the stockings; her husband, though not a
shoe-maker by trade, made all the shoes. She manufactured all the soap and
candles they used, and prepared her sugar from the sugar-trees on their
farm.
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