Here was to be a set of split cedar shelves, to hold their provisions and
baskets; there a set of stout pegs were to be inserted between the logs for
hanging up strings of dried meat, bags of birch-bark, or the skins of the
animals they were to shoot or trap. A table was to be fixed on posts in the
centre of the floor. Louis was to carve wooden platters and dishes, and
some stools were to be made with hewn blocks of wood, till something better
could be devised. Their bedsteads were rough poles of iron-wood, supported
by posts driven into the ground, and partly upheld by the projection of the
logs at the angles of the wall. Nothing could be more simple. The framework
was of split cedar; and a safe bed was made by pine boughs being first
laid upon the frame, and then thickly covered with dried grass, moss, and
withered leaves. Such were the lowly but healthy couches on which these
children of the forest slept.
A dwelling so rudely framed and scantily furnished would be regarded with
disdain by the poorest English peasant. Yet many a settler's family have I
seen as roughly lodged, while a better house was being prepared for
their reception; and many a gentleman's son has voluntarily submitted to
privations as great as these, from the love of novelty and adventure, or
to embark in the tempting expectation of realizing money in the lumbering
trade, working hard, and sharing the rude log shanty and ruder society of
those reckless and hardy men, the Canadian lumberers.
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