He
continued at his trade of weaving and kept five or six looms
going, making homespun cloth for the market and his neighbors.
Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the
homestead and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah
Boone and her little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring
till late autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic cabin alone on
the frontier. A rude dairy house stood over a cool spring, and
here Sarah Boone made her butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at
this time, watched the herds; at sunset he drove them to the
cabin for milking, and locked them in the cowpens at night.
He was not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself
a weapon that served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved
sapling with a small bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert
was he in the launching of this primitive spear that he easily
brought down birds and small game. When he reached his twelfth
year, his father bought him a rifle; and he soon became a crack
shot. A year later we find him setting off on the autumn
hunt--after driving the cattle in for the winter-with all the
keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His rifle
enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be
traded in Philadelphia.
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