Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/57

Rh and the remaining third would be notched at each end. The two trees which had been selected as corner posts for the structure were denuded of their bark on the sides facing each other, and the prepared logs placed in position by building three sides of a crib, pinning the flat ends of the logs to the trees by wooden pins, to receive which an auger hole had been previously bored through the log and into the tree itself. Thus the series of three logs superimposed upon each other formed three sides of the primitive camp, leaving the south side exposed to the weather. A roof of small poles and branches, brush, dried grass, and any other suit- able material which could be gathered up, completed the camp, into which their little furniture was disposed, and dried leaves gathered and arranged in the two corners for the four occupants to repose on when night should spread her sable mantle over the quiet solitude. The gaps were at leisure filled up with branches, mud, and anything which could be procured. A log fire kindled and kept up, night and day, in front of the camp, completed the establishment. Such an aboriginal structure as this served for an entire year as a home for the family that included the most famous man of modern times. This species of home was not inapt for a pioneer and his family in the summertime or in good weather; but when drenching storms came, or a south wind drove the smoke into the camp so as to compel evacuation by the inmates, it was extremely uncomfortable, if not, indeed, intolerable.

It was, in fact, a hunter's camp, such as city men even now are wont to occupy for a habitation during a few weeks of good weather, for the