Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/303

 the question whether she would have him; he should see at first sight if she liked him; he would not try again if she refused him. I told him our ladies always refused at first, though they meant otherwise, and wished him to come again, and look silly, and say little things. "That," said he, "cannot be right; she cannot be an honest woman who so acts." "But," said I, "you must get your quarter-sections, horse, cows, pigs, orchard, &c., before you take an English wife; she likes all these things." "Aye, but I would not let her know that I had any thing but what's on my back; she should not have me at all; for all I should want her to bring from her father would be decent clothes, and a bed and bedding. You English despise a man, and leave him to starve in England, if he is poor. We are a hospitable people. If a fellow, sick or poor, comes to us, we feed, and keep, and treat him as one of the family as long as he likes; and if he can work a little, give him half a dollar a day besides, and grumble not {323} if he makes not above an hour or two a day. When I court, I shall go at noon and sit up all night with her, and go once a week."

23rd.—Met a party of Rowdey hunters, who state that the bear in the month of June is fierce and chases the hunters, and all who molest it. They say that it climbs the tallest tree and falls from the top without injury, rolled up in the form of a ball.

The mode of tempering clay (which is used as mortar) is to confine and feed hogs upon it. Corn is strewed on it daily, and they tread and turn it all over with great industry.

Cock and hen, or common poultry feathers, are made to furnish down for beds in the following manner, fill a barrel with these feathers, and place it under a shed, bottom upwards, on the earth; when, in a few months,