Three-legged stools and a table were hewed from the
felled trees with an axe, which was often the settler's only and
invaluable tool, and which he would travel long miles to sharpen. If a
woman wanted a looking-glass, she scoured a tin pan, but the temptation
to inspect one's self must have been feeble. A very few kitchen utensils
completed the outfit. Troughs served for washtubs, when wash tubs were
used; and wooden ploughs broke up the virgin soil. The whole was little,
if at all, more comfortable than the red man's wigwam. In "towns," so
called, there was of course somewhat more of civilization than in the
clearings. But one must not be misled by a name; a "town" might signify
only a score of houses, and the length of its life was wholly
problematical; a few days sufficed to build the wooden huts, which in a
few years might be abandoned. In the early days there was almost no
money among the people; sometimes barter was resorted to; one lover paid
for his marriage license with maple sugar, another with wolf-scalps.
More often a promise sufficed; credit was a system well understood, and
promissory notes constituted an unquestioned and popular method of
payment that would have made a millennium for Mr. Micawber. But however
scant might be cash and houses, each town had its grocery, and these
famous "stores" were by far the chief influence in shaping the ideas of
the Westerner.
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