Hector and Louis had gone down to fish for supper, while Catharine busied
herself in collecting leaves and dried deer-grass, moss and fern, of which
there was abundance near the spring. The boys had promised to cut some
fresh cedar boughs near the lake shore, and bring them up to form a
foundation for their bed, and also to strew Indian-fashion over the floor
of the hut by way of a carpet. This sort of carpeting reminds one of, the
times when the palaces of our English kings were strewed with rushes, and
brings to mind the old song:--
"Oh! the golden days of good Queen Bess,
When the floors were strew'd with rushes,
And the doors went on the latch----"
Despise not then, you, my refined young readers, the rude expedients
adopted by these simple children of the forest, who knew nothing of the
luxuries that were to be met with in the houses of the great and the rich.
The fragrant carpet of cedar or hemlock-spruce sprigs strewn lightly over
the earthen floor, was to them a luxury as great as if it had been taken
from the looms of Persia or Turkey, so happy and contented were they in
their ignorance.
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