nips, gratefully changing their diet to onions when these came in the spring.

Such furniture as we had we made ourselves. In addition to my mother's two chairs and the bunks which took the place of beds, James made a bench for the living-room, as well as a table and several stools. At first we had our treecutting done for us, but we soon became expert in this gentle art, and I developed such skill that in later years, after father came, I used to stand with him and "heart" a log.

On every side, and at every hour of the day, we came against the relentless hardships of pioneer life. There was not a team of horses in our entire region. The team with which my brother had driven us through the wilderness had been hired at Grand Rapids for that occasion, and, of course, immediately returned. Our lumber was delivered by oxteams, and the absolutely essential purchases we made “outside" (at the nearest shops, forty miles away) were carried through the forest on the backs of men. Our mail was delivered once a month by a carrier who made the journey in alternate stages of horseback riding and canoeing.

But we had health, youth, enthusiasm, good appetites, and the food to satisfy them, and at night in our crude bunks we sank into dreamless slumber such as I have never known since. Indeed, looking back upon them, those few months seem to have been a long-drawn-out and glorious picnic, interrupted only by occasional hours of pain or panic, when we were hurt or frightened.

IV. ENCOUNTERS WITH INDIANS

Naturally, our two greatest fears were wild animals and Indians, but as the days passed, the first of these lost the early terrors with which we had associated them. We grew indifferent to the sounds that had made our first night a horror to us all, while we regarded with accustomed eyes the furred creatures of which we caught distant glimpses as they slunk through the forest. Their experience with other set

came a serious one, which we met with increasing difficulty as the temperature steadily fell. We melted snow and ice, and existed through the frozen months, but with an amount of discomfort which made us unwilling to repeat the experience. In the spring, therefore, I made a well.

Long before this James had gone, and Harry and I were now the only outdoor members of our working force. Harry was still too small to help with the well; but a young man, who had formed the neighborly habit of riding eighteen miles to call on us, gave me much friendly aid. When we had dug as far as we could reach with our spades, my assistant descended into the hole and threw the earth up to the edge, from which I in turn removed it. As the well grew deeper we made a half-way shelf, on which I stood, he throwing the earth on the shelf, and I shovelling it up from that point. Later, as he descended still farther into the hole we were making, he shovelled the earth into buckets and passed them up to me, I passing them on to my sister, who was now pressed into service. When the excavation was deep enough we made the wall of slabs of wood, roughly joined together.

The second spring after our arrival Harry and I tapped the sugar-bushes, collecting all the sap and carrying it home in pails slung from our yoke-laden shoulders. Together we made one hundred and fifty pounds of sugar and a barrel of syrup. To get the sap we chopped a gash in the tree and drove in a spile. Then we dug out a trough to catch the sap. It was no light task to lift these troughs full of sap and empty the sap into buckets, but we did it successfully and afterward built fires and boiled it down.

By this time we had also cleared some of our ground, and during the spring we were able to plow, dividing the work in a way that seemed fair to us both. These were difficult occupations for a boy of nine and a girl of thirteen. We also had our little tragedies. Our cow died, and for an entire winter we went without milk. Our coffee soon gave out, and as a substitute we made and used a mixture of browned peas and

My brother then directed that as quietly as possible, and at long intervals, one member of the family after another was to slip up the ladder and into the attic, that the Indians might not realize what we were doing. Once there, with the ladder drawn up after us and the trap-door closed, we would be reasonably safe, unless our guests decided to burn the cabin.

That evening seemed endless, and was certainly nerveracking. The Indians ate everything in the house, and from my seat in a dim corner I watched them while my sisters waited on them. I can still see the picture they made in the fire-lit room and hear the unfamiliar accents of their speech as they talked together. Occasionally one of them would pull a hair from his head, seize his scalping-knife, and cut the hair with it! When either of my sisters approached them some of the Indians would make gestures, as if capturing and scalping her. Through it all, however, the whisky held their close attention, and it was due to this that we succeeded in reaching the attic unobserved, James coming last of all and drawing the ladder after him.

Mother and the children were then put to bed; but through that endless night James and Eleanor lay flat upon the floor, watching through the cracks between the boards the drunken Indians, who grew wilder with every hour that crawled toward sunrise. There was no knowing when they would miss us or how soon their mood might change. At any moment they might make an attack upon us or set fire to the cabin. By dawn, however, their whisky was all gone, and one after the other the seven fell from their chairs to the floor, where they sprawled unconscious. When they awoke they left quietly and without trouble of any kind. Probably they were wretchedly ill.

V. DIGGING THE WELL

During the winter, life offered us new pastimes and many hardships. Our creek froze over, and the water problem be

came a serious one, which we met with increasing difficulty as the temperature steadily fell. We melted snow and ice, and existed through the frozen months, but with an amount of discomfort which made us unwilling to repeat the experience. In the spring, therefore, I made a well.

Long before this James had gone, and Harry and I were now the only outdoor members of our working force. Harry was still too small to help with the well; but a young man, who had formed the neighborly habit of riding eighteen miles to call on us, gave me much friendly aid. When we had dug as far as we could reach with our spades, my assistant descended into the hole and threw the earth up to the edge, from which I in turn removed it. As the well grew deeper we made a half-way shelf, on which I stood, he throwing the earth on the shelf, and I shovelling it up from that point. Later, as he descended still farther into the hole we were making, he shovelled the earth into buckets and passed them up to me, I passing them on to my sister, who was now pressed into service. When the excavation was deep enough we made the wall of slabs of wood, roughly joined together.

The second spring after our arrival Harry and I tapped the sugar-bushes, collecting all the sap and carrying it home in pails slung from our yoke-laden shoulders. Together we made one hundred and fifty pounds of sugar and a barrel of syrup. To get the sap we chopped a gash in the tree and drove in a spile. Then we dug out a trough to catch the sap. It was no light task to lift these troughs full of sap and empty the sap into buckets, but we did it successfully and afterward built fires and boiled it down.

By this time we had also cleared some of our ground, and during the spring we were able to plow, dividing the work in a way that seemed fair to us both. These were difficult occupations for a boy of nine and a girl of thirteen. We also had our little tragedies. Our cow died, and for an entire winter we went without milk. Our coffee soon gave out, and as a substitute we made and used a mixture of browned peas and

burnt rye. In the winter we were always cold, and the water problem, until we built our well, was ever with us.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

-Adapted.

1. Which part of this narrative interested you most? Read this part again and be ready to tell it in your own words.

2. How was the work divided in the Shaw home? Tell how it is divided in your home.

3. Tell what it means to chink a log house. To snare a fish. Το heart a log.

4. Tell how the Shaws solved their most difficult problem.

5. Would you like to live in a log cabin in the wilderness? As compared with your present house, tell what you would miss most

if your cabin were like the Shaws'.

6. As a whole, what makes this selection interesting?

4. THE HOUSE WITH NOBODY IN IT

JOYCE KILMER

Only a poet, perhaps, would think of an old empty house as having a broken heart. That is what Joyce Kilmer thought of a tumbledown house which he used to pass every day on his way to his office. Kilmer was a young American poet who was killed in action during the World War.

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track,

I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.

I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute,

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings. I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do; For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.