Making Ready to Build a Home

Father, believing that the Indians had given up trying to kill us, despite all Colonel Boone said to the contrary, was eager to get his land ready for planting, but decided that he would make no attempt at building a house until another spring. He wanted only to clear the land, and in such work Billy could be of almost as much assistance as a man.

There were shrubs and bushes to be grubbed up by the roots, small trees to be cut down and larger ones girdled, and again a certain number felled to be used in making the house. Of course I should say that when our people "girdle" a tree, they simply cut a deep line entirely around the trunk, through the bark and into the wood, so the sap will flow out instead of going up into the branches; this causes the tree to die very quickly. Later, standing stumps can be pulled up so that a plow may be used more easily.

When I said to father one night, while he and Billy were laying plans for the next day's work, that a cornfield filled with stumps would not be a very beautiful sight, he repeated mother's old saying which often tries my temper because she seldom uses it save to my disadvantage, "Handsome is that handsome does," and then went on to say that while it would please him to have a fine plantation, his only aim just then was to raise enough corn and potatoes to keep his family from want.