Their carpets were fresh cedar boughs spread upon the ground, and only
renewed when they became offensively dirty from the accumulation of fish
bones and other offal, which are carelessly flung down during meals. Of
furniture they had none, their seat the ground, their table the same, their
beds mats or skins of animals,--such were the domestic arrangements of the
Indian camp. [Footnote: Much improvement has taken place of late years in
the domestic economy of the Indians, and some of their dwellings are clean
and neat even for Europeans.] In the tent to which Catharine belonged,
which was that of the widow and her sons, a greater degree of order and
cleanliness prevailed than in any other, for Catharine's natural love of
neatness and comfort induced her to strew the floor with fresh cedar or
hemlock every day or two, and to sweep round the front of the lodge,
removing all unseemly objects from its vicinity. She never failed to wash
herself in the river, and arrange her hair with the comb that Louis had
made for her; and took great care of the little child, which she kept clean
and well fed.
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