Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/59

Rh moccasins served to ward off the snows and frosts of winter.

The united efforts of all the members of this little family served to keep the wolf from the door and also to show some progress toward a more comfortable state of existence; and in one year from the date of the first unpromising settlement in this virgin wilderness, a log cabin, situated a few rods distant from the camp, offered a better shelter, and gave token of Thomas Lincoln's ambition, and of his advancement towards a higher condition of life.

This cabin was formed of undressed logs, about eighteen feet square, with a "stick-and-mud" chimney; a hole for egress and ingress, in which was hung an untanned deer's hide, to defend, in some sort, against the assaults of the weather; and the only exterior light was acquired through the imperfect media of the broad chimneyplace and the cracks between the logs. The table was the flat surface of a bisected log, termed a puncheon, into which were inserted four legs by means of an auger. In lieu of chairs, there were small puncheons resting upon three legs. In lieu of bedsteads, stout poles were inserted in the spaces between the logs which formed the cabin, the two outer ends being supported by a crotched stick, driven into the ground floor of the wretched abode. The bedding and bedclothes, dishes and cooking utensils were in harmony with the cabin and its rustic furniture; and stout pins inserted in the logs constituted a substitute for the staircase or the "elevator" of civilization. This miserable abode was embosomed in brush, and unadorned with any suggestion of refined rusticity or halo of romance.