They made their clearings in the forest, built
their cabins and stockades, and planted their cornfields, while
lookouts kept watch and rifles were stacked within easy reach.
Every special task, such as a "raising," as cabin building was
called, was undertaken by the community chiefly because the
Indian danger necessitated swift building and made group action
imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. Nothing
in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the
pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's
dictation into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for
the "raising," the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the
newcomer's holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women
with their pots and kettles. Every child toddled along, too,
helping to carry the wooden dishes and spoons. These free givers
of labor had something of the Oriental's notion of the sacred
ratification of friendship by a feast.
The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The
timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at
hand--logs of hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To
make the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest logs,
laid them in place, and notched and grooved and hammered them
into as close a clinch as if they had grown so.
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