Part 2

As soon as the iron could be procured, a crane was swung over the fire-place, and from it were suspended the iron tea-kettle and the griddle. The latter was a large disc upon which the pancakes were made. It was supported by an iron bale, and was large enough to hold eight or ten fair-sized cakes. The frying-pans were similar to those in use to-day, but were furnished with handles three feet long, so that they could be used over the hot coals of the fire-place. The bake-kettle was an indispensable article in every household. It was about eighteen inches in diameter, stood upon short legs, and would hold four or five two-pound loaves, or their equivalent. The coals were raked out on the hearth, the kettle set over them and more coals heaped upon the iron lid. These were replenished, above and below, from time to time, until the bread was thoroughly baked. The bake-kettle was superseded by the reflector, which was an oblong box of bright tin, enclosed on all sides but one. It was placed on the hearth with the open side next a bed of glowing coals. In it were placed the tins of dough raised a few inches from the bottom, so that the heat could circulate freely about the loaves. The upper part of the reflector was removable, to enable the housewife to inspect the contents.

The reflector in time gave way to the bake-oven, which was built in the wall next the fire-place, so that one chimney would serve for both, or the oven was built outdoors under the same roof as the smoke-house. The latter was a comparatively air-tight brick or stone chamber used for smoking beef, and the hams and shoulders of the pigs. Before the advent of the smoke-house, strips of beef required for summer use were dried by suspending them from pegs in the chimney.

The reflector was sometimes used for roasting meat, but where the family could afford it, a roaster was kept for that purpose. The roaster was smaller than the reflector, but constructed in a similar manner and, running from end to end through the centre, was a small iron bar, one end of which terminated in a small handle or crank. This bar, called a spit, was run through the piece of meat, and by turning the handle from time to time the meat was revolved and every portion of the surface was in turn brought next the fire. The drippings from the meat were caught in a dripping-pan placed underneath for the purpose. These drippings were used for basting the roasting meat, and this was done with a long-handled basting spoon through an opening in the back, which could be easily closed at will.

As there were no matches in the early days, the fire was kept constantly burning, and when not required the coals were covered over with ashes, where they would remain alive for hours. Occasionally the coals would die out and then one of the younger members was sent away to a neighbour to obtain a pan of live ones. Most families were skilled in making a fire by striking sparks from a flint upon a dry combustible substance, or by rapidly revolving one dry piece of pine against another, as the Indians used to do; but these practices were slow and were not resorted to except in extreme cases.

The blazing logs in the fire-place furnished ample light during the winter evenings. The inventive genius of man has since produced the kerosene lamp, gas, acetylene, electricity, and other illuminants, but none of these can furnish the bright welcome of the pine knots blazing about the old-fashioned back-log. If any other artificial light was required, the tallow dip was the only alternative. This dip was a tallow candle, in use before moulds were introduced. A kettle was placed over the coals with five or six inches of water in the bottom. When the water was brought to the boiling point there was added the melted tallow. This remained on the surface of the water. The only service the water was intended to render was to support the tallow by raising it so many inches above the bottom of the kettle, where it could be used much more easily than it could if it remained at the bottom. The candle wicks were twisted with a loop at one end, which was slipped over a small stick. Five or six wicks would be thus suspended from the stick and slowly dipped into the liquid tallow, by which process the wicks became saturated. As soon as the tallow congealed they were dipped in again, and the operation repeated until the wick was surrounded by a thick coating of tallow very similar to the ordinary wax or tallow candle of to-day, but not so smooth or uniform in size as those made at a later period in the moulds.

Dishes were as scarce as cooking utensils. A few earthenware plates, bowls, and a platter were displayed upon a shelf; and they were all the house could boast of. Others were whittled out of the fine-grained wood of the poplar and served the purpose fairly well until the Yankee peddler arrived with the more desirable pewter ware.

A corner cupboard, from whose mysterious depths, even in our time, our grandmothers used to produce such stores of cookies, doughnuts, tarts, and pies, completed the equipment of the first house of the pioneer.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE STRUGGLE WITH THE FOREST*

Unless the site for the homestead was conveniently near a spring or other never-failing supply of fresh water, one of the settler's first requirements was a well. The location for this was, as a rule, determined by a divining-rod of witch-hazel in the hands of an expert. Confidence in this method of ascertaining the presence of water has not yet died out (the writer witnessed the payment of five dollars last summer for a service of this kind). When the well was dug and stoned up, heavy poles were laid over it to protect it. A pole, terminating in a crotch several feet above the ground, was planted ten or twelve feet from the well--the height depending upon the depth of the well. In this crotch rested another pole, called a "sweep", from the small end of which, suspended over the centre of the well, hung the bucket. The sweep was so balanced that its heavy end would lift the bucket of water from the well with very little effort upon the part of the operator.

During the first season, barns and stables were not required, as the settler had neither stock nor crop of grain. When he did need barns and stables, they were built of logs in the same manner as the house.

A small clearing about the house was made the first year, and in this was planted some turnip seed. This patch was carefully guarded and yielded a small crop of roots, which were stored away for winter use in a root-cellar built for the purpose. The root-cellar was a small, rough enclosure of logs, built in a bank or the side of a hill and covered over with earth.

Little further progress could be made in the new home until more land was cleared, stock introduced, and farming operations begun in earnest. The clearing was accomplished only after many years, as the land was densely wooded, and even with the aid of the cross-cut saw and the oxen it was slow work getting ready for the plow. The farmers worked early and late battling with the forest, single-handed and in "bees"; cutting and burning the valuable timber, which to-day would yield a fortune; then, the only return from this timber was the potash made from the ashes. The stumps were most unyielding, particularly those of the pine; and all kinds of contrivances were devised to uproot them. Sometimes they were burned out, but this was a slow process, and a large portion of the soil about them would be injured by the fire. Blasting powder was used and many patterns of stump machines were employed, but the most common and perhaps the most satisfactory method was to sever the roots that could be easily reached, hitch a logging-chain to one side, bring it up over the top and let the oxen tip over the stump by sheer brute force. The pine stumps made excellent fuel for the fire-places and were also used for fences.

The word "potash" is indicative of the process of its manufacture and the chief article from which it was made. It was in great demand as a bleaching agent and was extensively used in the making of soap. Shiploads of it were annually exported from Canada. Nearly every farmer had a leach, a large V-shaped vat, which he filled with ashes. Over these he poured a quantity of water, which filtered through the ashes, dissolved, took up in solution the alkaline salts, and trickled out of the bottom in the form of lye. A certain amount of this liquid was required for the manufacture of soft soap for the farmer's own use. This was made by adding some animal fat to the lye and boiling it down for several hours. The ordinary fire-place provided all the ashes needed for this purpose. The large quantity made from burning the timber in clearing up the land was carried one stage farther for convenience in handling. The lye was boiled down in a huge kettle capable of holding fifty gallons or more, and, when it reached the proper consistency, it was transferred to a large iron pot, known as a cooler, where it congealed into a solid, and in that form received the name of potash. When the country store-keeper became firmly established he received it in exchange for his merchandise, and not infrequently purchased the ashes and manufactured it himself upon a large scale. Some of the farmers hauled their ashes in with their oxen; but the merchant also kept one or more teams thus employed, when not engaged in drawing his goods to and from the nearest shipping point. Up and down the concessions the creaking ash-wagons went, gathering in all that was left of the once proud forest that had been cleared away to make room for the plow. Convenient to the store was an ash-yard, with half a dozen leaches in operation, and the fires were kept roaring under the kettles. Here the wagons unloaded the ashes upon a platform suspended from one end of an evenly balanced beam, while iron weights of fifty-six pounds each, or some other fractional part of the long ton, were placed upon a smaller platform suspended from the other end of the beam. This was the customary method of weighing bulky substances that could not be conveniently weighed by the steelyards.

When the first crop of grain was obtained, it was harvested with the crude implements of the day and conveyed to the threshing floor. As a rule this consisted of a bare piece of ground, sometimes covered with boards or flat stones, but more frequently the bare earth had no covering. Here the grain was pounded out with a flail, and Nature supplied the fanning-mill; the mixed grain and chaff were tossed into the air during a stiff breeze, and the chaff was blown away.

To convert the wheat into flour was a more difficult matter. The government had provided a few little hand-mills, but they were not adapted to the purpose; so that the settler took a lesson from the Indian, burned a large hole in the top of an oak stump and pounded the wheat to a powder with a pestle or a cannon ball suspended from the end of a sweep. It was not many years before government mills were erected at different points, where there was a sufficient supply of water-power. The localities thus served suffered little inconvenience, as compared with less favoured districts.

Ten, fifteen, or twenty years wrought a great change in the wilderness home. Small clearings were everywhere to be seen. Barns had been built, the houses had been enlarged, and the melodious tinkling of bells betrayed the presence of cattle. Sheep and swine were also found on every farm, but they had to be guarded to protect them from marauding bears and wolves. Of horses there were but few. Awkward as the ox may appear, he was more than a match for the horse in finding a sure footing among the stumps, logs, and fallen timbers. Breaking in "Buck and Bright" to come under the yoke and to respond to the "gee", "haw", and the snap of the whip was a tedious undertaking, but was successfully accomplished.

The general store made its appearance, but the pioneer had learned to be independent and still supplied most of his own wants. He raised his own flax, and when it was ripe he pulled it by hand, tied it into small sheaves so that it would dry quickly, and shocked it up. When it was cured, it was taken to the barn and threshed out with a flail. The straw was then spread out on the ground and left for two or three weeks, until it had rotted sufficiently to permit the stalks to be broken without severing the outer rind, which supplied the shreds. The object was to get it in such a condition that this outer part could be freed from the inner. It was first put through a crackle, which was a bench four feet long, composed of three or four boards standing on their edges and just far enough apart, that three or four similar boards, framed together and operated from a hinge like a pair of nut-crackers, would, when closed down, drop into the several spaces between the lower boards. The straw was passed over the lower boards at right angles, and the operator raised and lowered the upper frame, bringing it down on the flax, breaking the stalks, and loosening the outer shreds from the inner pulp. To remove the pulp the stalks were then drawn over a heckle, which was a board with scores of long nails protruding through. This combed the coarser pulp away, when the same process was repeated over a finer heckle, which left the shreds ready to be spun into thread on a spinning wheel similar to, but smaller than that used in spinning wool. The thread was then bleached, dyed, wound into balls, and passed on to the weaver. The farmer also raised his own sheep, sheared them, and washed and carded the wool.

Every maiden served her apprenticeship at the spinning wheel, and her education was not complete until she had learned how to spin the yarn, pass it over the swift, and prepare it for the loom, which had become a part of the equipment of nearly every house. The linen, flannel, and fullcloth for the entire family were made upon the premises. Service was more sought after than style, particularly in the "everyday clothes"; and, if the mother or maiden aunt could not cut and make a suit, the first itinerant tailor who happened along was installed as a member of the household for a fortnight and fitted out the whole family for the next year.

The boots and shoes were also homemade, or at least made at home. Somewhere about every farm was to be found a tanning-trough, in which a cowhide would be immersed for three weeks in a weak solution of lye to remove the hair and any particles of flesh still adhering to the skin. It was then transferred to a tub containing a solution of oak bark and left for several months, after which it was softened by kneading and rubbing, and was then ready to be made up. The making of the boots required considerable skill. A man can wear and obtain good service from an ill-made suit of clothes, but a poor-fitting pair of boots is an abomination likely to get the wearer into all sorts of trouble. Corns and bunions are not of modern origin, but have afflicted the human race ever since boots were first worn. A kit of shoemaker's tools, composed of a last, hammer, awls, and needles, was to be found in every house; and some member of the family was usually expert in adding a half-sole or applying a patch; few, however, attempted to make the boots. The travelling shoemaker went about from house to house and performed this service. A few years later every neighbourhood had its tannery, and every village its one or more shoemakers. The tanner took his toll for each hide; and the shoemaker, for a bag of potatoes, a roll of butter, or a side of pork, would turn out a pair of boots, which would long outwear the factory-made article of to-day.

The skins of the bear, fox, and racoon furnished fur caps for the winter; and the rye straw supplied the material for straw hats for summer. In nearly every house some one would be found capable of producing the finished articles from these raw materials. The milliner, as such, would have had a hard time in earning a living a hundred years ago, as head-gear at that time was worn to protect the head.

The life of the early settlers was not all work and drudgery. They had their hours of recreation, and what is best of all, they had the happy faculty, in many matters, of making play out of work. This was accomplished by means of "bees". There were logging bees, raising bees, stumping bees, and husking bees for the men, while the women had their quilting bees and paring bees. The whole neighbourhood would be invited to these gatherings. It may be that upon the whole they did not accomplish more than could have been done single-handed, except at the raisings, which required many hands to lift the large timbers into place; but work was not the only object in view. Man is a gregarious animal and loves to mingle with his fellow men. The occasions for public meetings of any kind during the first few years were very rare. There were no fairs, concerts, lectures, or other public entertainments, not even a church, school, or political meeting, so, in their wisdom, the early settlers devised these gatherings for work--and work they did. but, Oh! the joy of it! All the latest news gathered from every quarter was discussed, notes were compared on the progress made in the clearings, the wags and clowns furbished up their latest jokes, and all enjoyed themselves in disposing of the good things brought forth from the corner cupboard.

Perhaps some special mention should be made of the logging bee, since it stands out as the only one of these jolly gatherings that was regarded as a necessary evil, particularly by the female members of the family. Perhaps the grimy appearance of the visitors had something to do with the esteem in which they were held at such times. The logging bee followed the burning of the fallow, which consumed the underbrush, the tops and branches of the trees, and left the charred trunks to be disposed of. In handling these, the workers soon became black as negroes; and the nature of the work seemed to demand an extraordinary consumption of whiskey. Anyway, the liquor was consumed; the men frequently became disorderly, and concluded the bee with one or more drunken fights. It was this feature of the logging bees that made them unpopular with the women.

The afternoon tea now serves its purpose very well, but modern society has yet to discover the equal of the quilting bee as a clearing-house for gossip. To the credit of the fair sex, we should add that they rarely made use of intoxicants; but the old grannies did enjoy a few puffs from a blackened clay pipe after their meals. Both men and women were more or less addicted to the use of snuff.

Whiskey was plentiful in the good old days, but the drinking of it was not looked upon with such horror, nor attended with such disastrous consequences as in our day. This difference was probably due both to the drink and the drinker. Some people will not admit that any whiskey is bad, while others deny that any can be good; but the whiskey of a hundred years ago does not appear to have had as fierce a serpent in it as the highly-advertised brands of the present day. It possessed one virtue, and that was its cheapness. When a quart could be purchased for sixpence, a man could hardly be charged with rash extravagance in buying enough whiskey to produce the desired effect. It was considered quite the proper thing to drink upon almost any occasion, and upon the slightest provocation; and, if a member of a company received an overdose and glided under the table, it created no more sensation than if he had fallen asleep. As the population increased, taverns were set up at nearly every crossing of the roads. Some of these, especially the recognized stopping-places of the stage coaches, were quite imposing hostelries; and as the guests gathered about the huge fire-place on a winter's evening and smoked their pipes, drank their toddy, and exchanged their tales of adventure and travel, the scene was one that has no counterpart in our day. It was a form of sociability and entertainment that departed with the passing of the stage coach.

In this age of railroads and motor cars we have no conception of the discomforts of travel eighty or a hundred or more years ago. The Loyalists clung for many years to the bateaux, the flat-bottomed boats, which conveyed them over the last stage of their journey to their new homes. These boats were very popular upon the Bay of Quinte. In going west they were carried across the Carrying Place at the head of the bay by a man named Asa Weller, who kept a low wagon and a yoke of oxen ready at hand to transport the travellers from the bay to the lake and back again upon the return trip. It is needless to add that Weller's Bay was named after this enterprising teamster.

In 1816 the first stage line in Upper Canada was inaugurated between Kingston and Bath by Samuel Purdy, of Bath, and in the following year he opened a line from Kingston to York. The roads were wretched, and the fare was eighteen dollars. Fourteen years later William Weller, a son of Asa, whose business of transporting the bateaux from one body of water to the other had brought him in contact with the travelling public and acquainted him with their needs, established a bi-weekly service between the Carrying Place and York, in connection with the steamer _Sir James Kempt_, which carried the passengers on to Prescott. The fare from York to Prescott was L2 10s. ($10). The stage left York at four o'clock in the morning, arriving at the Carrying Place the same evening.

The very term, stage-coach, suggests to our minds a spanking four-in-hand, in brass-mounted harness, attached to a gayly-decorated conveyance. We picture them dashing through a village under the crack of the coachman's whip. Away they go, rattling over the bridge, down the turnpike, and with a shrill blast of the guard's horn, they haul up at the wayside inn, where a fat and smiling landlord escorts the passengers in to a hot dinner. Such were not the stagecoaches of our forefathers; they were simply lumber wagons without springs and covered with canvas like the prairie schooners, or plain wooden enclosures with seats suspended by leather straps. Just think of being cooped up in such an affair from sunrise to sunset--the clumsy "coach" jolting over the rough roads, dodging stumps, rocks, and fallen trees, plunging down a steep embankment, fording rivers and streams, and sinking now and then to the axles in mud!