They now visited those trees
that they had marked in the summer, where they had noticed the bees hiving,
and cut them down; in one they got more than a pailful of rich honey-comb,
and others yielded some more, some less; this afforded them a delicious
addition to their boiled rice, and dried acid fruits. They might have
melted the wax, and burned candles of it; but this was a refinement of
luxury that never once occurred to our young house-keepers: the dry pine
knots that are found in the woods are the settlers' candles; but Catharine
made some very good vinegar with the refuse of the honey and combs, by
pouring water on it, and leaving it to ferment in a warm nook of the
chimney, in one of the birch-bark vessels, and this was an excellent
substitute for salt as a seasoning to the fresh meat and fish. Like the
Indians, they were now reconciled to the want of this seasonable article.
Indiana seemed to enjoy the cold weather; the lake, though locked up to
every one else, was open to her; with the aid of the tomahawk she patiently
made an opening in the ice, and over this she built a little shelter of
pine boughs stuck into the ice.
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