History 16

A modern car would not find a corduroy road an agreeable companion, to say the least. But wagons of that day were built to stand any amount of rough usage. The only problem was to get them through.

The hides used by our forefathers were tanned by themselves. They made their own shoes and the women spun their own flax and wool. All the cloth used was woven by hand, and while the clothes were not as stylish as now, they were not as flimsy as the garments of the woman of today. They lasted much longer than women's dresses now do - they had to. The shirts of the men, most of their outer clothing and all underwear were made by hand. It was usually in winter by candlelight, or by the light of large pine-shaving stuck into a chink between the logs that they spun their cloth. The candles, by the way, which they later on used, were made in their homes from their own tallow. The soap they used, they boiled themselves. Our grandmothers had no bell to call the men from the field, but blew a sort of mess-call on a long, slender horn.

Books were a rare article with them, and newspapers practically unknown for a long time. News traveled slowly. This lack of reading material, how-