reclaiming for civilized man this wilderness, and to wage war upon primeval nature. And by so-called humble ways this mighty achievement must be begun. There was the grindstone to be hung, and tools had to be sharpened; before proceeding to build for themselves a habitation, rails must be split to make an enclosure for the half-wild oxen, and yokes and ox-bows must be made. The task of yoking and driving the refractory brutes was one to try the patience, courage, and ingenuity of the missionaries, whose united efforts could scarcely reduce them to submission. The cows, too, lately driven off the pastures, were intractable, and had to be tied by the head, and hobbled, before they could be milked. "Men never worked harder and performed less," says Daniel Lee. The trees being felled, cut into the proper lengths, and squared,[1] a building twenty feet by thirty was in the course of erection when the first autumn storm of rain and wind came on, drenching some of the goods, to which a tent proved only a partial protection. By the 1st of November they had a roof over their heads, and a puncheon floor beneath their feet, while a bright fire blazed under a chimney constructed of sticks and clay. The doors of this primitive mansion were hewn out of fir logs, and hung on wooden hinges; a partition divided the house into two apartments, and four small windows, whose sashes were whittled out with a pocket-knife by Jason Lee, admitted the dull light of a cloudy winter. Little by little tables, stools, and chairs were in like manner added. Of bedsteads there is no mention in the writings of the only one of their number who has left any record. A blanket and a plank served for a couch. As to the food of the family, it was as simple as their lodgings. They had shipped nothing from Boston except some salt pork, which was boiled with barley or pease purchased
- ↑ The broadaxe which hewed those logs is now kept as carefully as was the bow of Ulysses. It came round Cape Horn in Wyeth's ship, and was exhibited at the meeting of the Pioneer Association near Salem in 1878. Parrish's Or. Anecdotes, MS., 13.
