Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/29

 A RETARDED FRONTIER

'3

occasion we were refused a meal for what seemed a very urban reason. The cook had gone away. With these exceptions we were welcomed quietly, not effusively, at every house where we dismounted. We would ride up to the fence of the yard about

MILL WITH OVERSHOT WHEEL

the cabin, tether our horses, climb over the rails — there was rarely a gate — make our way to the "gallery," and ask for a meal. The request was readily granted, with conventionally diffident remarks about the larder. Boys unsaddled our horses and took them to the rambling log barn for their meal of corn. After dipping into the wash-basin, we sat talking with our host, while the women of the household prepared the meal which we needed and at the same time dreaded.

The decorations of the cabin were confined ordinarily to cut- paper fringes on the shelf above the fireplace, or on corner brackets nailed to the logs. In several cases the inner walls were covered with pages from illustrated magazines and papers, and with advertising posters in brilliant colors. It was a rare thing to find pictures of any other kind, and photographs and tintypes seemed almost unknown. In many of the cabins there was a small shelf of books, chiefly school texts, owned by the younger people, and it was not uncommon for the host or hostess