Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/83

Rh somewhat more provident, but yet very primitive. The most luxuriant growth was religion; to attend "meetin'," the settlers would journey eight or ten miles on foot, or horseback, or however they could. The females would be attired in their husbands' overcoats, while the latter would protect themselves from the weather by hunting shirts and moccasins. They met in schoolhouses, private houses, or in the woods. The preachers were apt to be more zealous than consistent, more polemical than charitable. Not only were their "meetin's" employed as an agency by which they might obtain the priceless boon of eternal life, but they served the more worldly and less meritorious object of neighborly reunions, when social amenities were cultivated, friendships cemented, mutual acquaintance fostered, and the general welfare discussed and adjudicated. Instead of formal sanctimony brooding over the gathering, joyousness and bonhomie prevailed. They lived too remote from each other to "run in and out" daily, and when they did meet, mix, and mingle on the Lord's Day, it was used as a medium by which to secure attrition and hold converse with their kind. The women wore "calash," or scoop-shovel bonnets, linsey-woolsey frocks gathered just under the armpits, coarse underwear, and brogans. The "dress" suit of the men was composed of jeans of close and economical fit, with the waist high up in the back, buckskin trousers, and coonskin cap. Their manners were blufl and hearty; all door-strings were hung outside, a sincere welcome was accorded to strangers, locks and bolts were unknown. While entire families were at "meetin on Sunday, or at a "hoedown," or