Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/84

Rh real hardship. Necessity demanded very plain attire among the first settlers and custom sanctioned it. Buttons for these coats were made of pewter cast in moulds cut in blocks of soapstone. Old spoons, plates and other pieces of worn out table ware that had seen service around many a camp fire on the plains and in the mountains were used for this purpose. Garments were sometimes made of the wool-like hair of the wolf. At the time we lived in Missouri there were in almost every family a spinning wheel and loom and the women folks spun yarn of wool and cotton out of which they knit socks, stockings and other garments, and wove cloth for family use. They were therefore skilled manufacturers on a small scale in this line, but for some years after settling in Oregon there was neither cotton nor wool to be had, and the hair of the wolf was resorted to as a substitute for wool. It was a poor substitute, for the yarn spun of it was coarse and not strong. Another drawback was that wolves could not be fleeced so long as they were alive, and a man could not kill a sufficient number of the kind that were common, the prairie wolf or coyote, in a month, to make a sweater. The yarn spun from the fleece of one pelt would hardly make a pair of slippers for a child. The attempt to provide clothing in this way was, of course, an experiment which was not successful. But my Aunt Melinda had brought a pair of wool cards with her from her home in Missouri. She had some one make a spinning wheel, and after carding the fleece of wolves into rolls and spinning these into yarn she knit garments. One garment, a jumper or sweater, I often saw Uncle Charles wear. The skin of the deer, when tanned by the Indians, was soft and pliable and was used by the pioneers. Coats and trousers of buckskin were worn, but I confess to a prejudice against buckskin. I have seen poems printed on this material, notably "The Days of 49," and I have heard men talk of having notes written on it to hold against parties notoriously slow to meet their obligations, for a note written on buckskin will not wear out. In a climate where it never rains a buckskin suit might be comfortable, but in the climate where we lived, such garments often proved wretchedly disagreeable. Trousers, after frequent wettings and dryings would assume a fixed shape that admitted of no reformation. This malformation did not appear