Chapter 1: LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS
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O N C E upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wissin, in a little gray house made of logs. The great, dark trees of the Big Woods stood all around the house, and beyond them were other trees and beyond them were more trees. As far as a man could go to the north in a day, or a week, or a whole month, there was nothing but woods. There were no houses. There were no roads. There were no people. There were only trees and the wild animals who had their homes among them.Wolves lived in the Big Woods, and bears, and huge wild cats. Muskrats and mink and otter lived by the streams. Foxes had dens in the hills and deer roamed everywhere.
To the east of the little log house, and to the West, there were miles upon miles of trees, and only a few little log houses scattered far apart in the edge of the Big Woods.
So far as the little girl could see, there was only the otle house where she lived with her Father and Mother, her sister Mary and baby sister Carrie. A wagon track ran before the house, turning and twisting out of sight in the woods where the wild animals lived, but the little girl did not know where it went, nor what might be at the end of it.
The little girl was named Laura and she called her father, Pa, and her mother, Ma. In those days and in that place, children did not say Father and Mother, nor Mamma and Papa, as they do now.
At night, when Laura lay awake irundle bed she listened and could not hear anything at all but the sound of the trees whispering together.
Sometimes, far away in the night, a wolf howled. Then he came nearer, and howled again.
It was a scary sound. Laura khat wolves would eat little girls. But she was safe ihe solid log walls. Her fathers gun hung over the door and good old Jack, the brindle bulldog, lay on guard before it. Her father would say, Go to sleep, Laura. Jack wohe wolves in. So Laura snuggled uhe covers of the trundle bed, close beside Mary, ao sleep. One night her father picked her tip out of bed and carried her to the window so<bdi>藏书网</bdi> that she might see the wolves. There were two of them sitting in front of the house. They looked like shaggy dogs. They poiheir the big, bright moon, and howled.
Jack paced up and down before the drowling. The hair stood up along his bad he showed his sharp, fierce teeth to the wolves. They howled, but they could not get in.
The house was a fortable house. Upstairs there was a large attic, pleasant to play ihe rain drummed on the roof. Downstairs was the small bedroom, and the big room. The bed-; room had a window that closed with a wooden shutter. The big room had two windows with glass in the panes, and it had two doors, a front, door and a back door.
All around the house was a crooked rail feo keep the bears and the deer away.
In the yard in front of the house were two beautiful big oak trees. Every m as soon as she was awake Laura ran to look out of the window, and one m she saw in each of the big trees a dead deer hanging from a branch.
Pa had shot the deer the day before and Laura had been asleep when he brought them home at night and hung them high irees so the wolves could not get the meat.
That day Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary had fresh venison for dinner. It was so good that Laura wished they could eat it all. But most of the meat must be salted and smoked and packed away to be eaten in the winter.<cite></cite>
For winter was ing. The days were shorter, and frost crawled up the window pa night. Soon the snow would e. Then the log house would be almost buried in snowdrifts, and the lake and the streams would freeze. Iter cold weather Pa could not be sure of finding any wild game to shoot for meat.
The bears would be hidden away in their dens where they slept soundly all winter long. The squirre<a></a>ls would be curled in their s in hollow trees, with their furry tails ed snugly around their he deer and the rabbits would be shy and swift. Even if Pa could get a deer, it would be poor and thin, not fat and plump as deer are in the fall.
Pa might hunt alone all day iter cold, in the Big Woods covered with snow, and e home at night with nothing for Ma and Mary and Laura to eat.
So as much food as possible must be stored away itle house before winter came.
Pa skihe deer carefully and salted and stretched the hides, for he would make soft leather of them. The up the meat, and sprinkled salt over the pieces as he laid them on a board.
Standing on end in the yard was a tall length cut from the trunk of a big hollow tree. Pa had driven nails inside as far as he could reach from ead. Theood it up, put a little roof over the top, and cut a little door on one side he bottom. On the piece that he cut out he fastened leather hiheted it into place, and that was the little door, with the bark still on it.
After the deer meat had been salted several days, Pa cut a hole he end of each pied put a string through it. Laura watched him do this, and theched him hang the meat on the nails in the hollow log.
He reached up through the little door and hu on the nails, as far up as he could reach. The a ladder against the log, climbed up to the top, moved the roof to one side, and reached down io ha on those nails.
Then Pa put the roof back again, climbed down the ladder, and said to Laura:
"Ruo the chopping blod fetch me some of those green hickory chips-new, , white ones.”
So Laura ran to the block where Pa chopped wood, and filled her apron with the fresh, sweet smelling chips.
Just ihe little door in the hollow log Pa built a fire of tiny bits of bark and moss, and he laid some of the chips on it very carefully.
Instead of burning quickly, the green chips smoldered and filled the hollow log with thick, choking smoke. Pa shut the door, and a little smoke squeezed through the crack around it and a little smoke came out through the roof, but most of it was shut in with the meat.
"Theres nothier than good hickory smoke," Pa said. "That will make good venison that will keep anywhere, in aher.”
Theook his gun, and slinging his ax on his shoulder he went away to the clearing to cut down some more trees.
Laura and Ma watched the fire for several days. When smoke stopped ing, through the cracks, Laura would bring more hickory chips and Ma would put them on the fire uhe meat. All the time there was a little smell of smoke in the yard, and when the door ened a thick, smoky, meaty smell came out.
At last Pa said the venison had smoked long enough. Then they let the fire go out, and Pa took all the strips and pieeat out of the hollow tree. Ma ed each pieeatly in paper and hung them iic where they would keep safe and dry.
One m Pa went away before daylight with the horses and wagon, and that night he came home with a wagonload of fish. The big wagon box iled full, and some of the fish were as big as Laura. Pa had goo Lake Pepin and caught them all with a .
Ma a cut large slices of flaky white fish, without one bone, for Laura and Mary. They all feasted on the good, fresh fish. All they did fresh was salted down in barrels for the winter.
Pa owned a pig. It ran wild in the Big Woods, living on as and nuts and roots. Now he caught it and put it in a pen made of logs, to fatten. He would butcher it as soon as the weather was cold enough to keep the pork frozen.
Laura woke up and heard the pig squealing. Pa jumped out of bed, snatched his gun from the wall, and ran outdoors. Then Laura heard the gun go off, owice.
When Pa came back, he told what had happened. He had seen a big black bear standing beside the pigpen. The bear was reag into the pen to grab the pig, and the pig was running and squealing. Pa saw this iarlight and he fired quickly. But the light was dim and in his haste he missed the bear. The bear ran away into the woods, not hurt at all.
Laura was sorry Pa did not get the bear. She liked bear meat so much. Pa was sorry, too, but he said: "Anyway, I saved the ba.”
The garden behind the little house had been growing all summer. It was so he house that the deer did not jump the fend cat the vegetables in the daytime, and at night Jack kept them away. Sometimes in the m there were little hoof-prints among the carrots and the cabbages. But Jacks tracks were there, too, and the deer had jumped right out again.
Now the potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips and cabbages were gathered and stored in the cellar, for freezing nights had e.
Onions were made into long ropes, braided together by their tops, and then were hung iic beside wreaths of red peppers strung on threads. The pumpkins and the squashes were piled in e and yellow and green heaps iics ers.
The barrels of salted fish were in the pantry, and yellow cheeses were stacked on the pantry shelves.
Then one day Uncle Henry came riding out of the Big Woods. He had e to help Pa butcher. Mas big butcher knife was already sharpened, and Uncle Henry had brought Aunt Pollys butcher knife.
he pigpen Pa and Uncle Henry built -a bonfire, aed a great kettle of water over it. Wheer was boiling they went to kill the hog. Then Laura ran and hid her head on the bed and stopped her ears with her fingers so she could not hear the hog squeal.
"It doesnt hurt him, Laura," Pa said. "We do it so quickly." But she did not want to hear him squeal.
In a minute. she took one finger cautiously out of an ear, and listehe hog had stopped squealing. After that, Butchering Time was great fun.
It was such a busy day, with so much to see and do. Uncle Henry and Pa were jolly, and there would be spare-ribs for or dinner, and Pa had promised Laura and Mary the bladder and the pigs tail.
As soon as the hog was dead Pa and Uncle Henry lifted it up and down in the boiling water till it was well scalded. Then they laid it on a board and scraped it with their knives, and all the bristles came off. After that they hung the hog *in a tree, took out the insides, a it hanging to cool.
When it was cool they took it down and cut it up. There were hams and shoulders, side meat and spare-ribs and belly. There was the heart and the liver and the tongue, and the head to be made into headcheese, and the dish-pan full of bits to be made into sausage.
The meat was laid on a board in the back-door shed, and every piece rinkled with salt. The hams and the shoulders were put to pickle in brine, for they would be smoked, like the venison, in the hollow log.
"You t beat hickory-cured ham," Pa said.
He was blowing up the bladder. It made a little white balloon, aied the end tight with a string and gave it to Mary and Laura to play with. They could throw it into the air and spat it bad forth with their hands.
Or it would bounce along the ground and they could kick it. But eveer fun than a balloon was the pigs tail.
Pa ski for them carefully, and into the large ehrust a sharpeick. Ma opehe front of the cookstove and raked hot coals out into the iroh. Then Laura and Mary took turns holding the pigs tail over the coals.
It sizzled and fried, and drops of fat dripped off it and blazed on the coals. Ma spri with salt. Their hands and their faces got very hot, and Laura burned her finger, but she was so excited she did not care. Roasting the pigs tail was such fun that it was hard to play fair, taking turns.
At last it was do was nicely browned all over, and how good it smelled! They carried it into the yard to cool it, and even before it was cool enough they began tasting it and burheir tongues.
They ate every little bit of meat off the bones, and then they gave the boo Jack. And that was the end of the pigs tail. There would not be another oill year.
Uncle Henry went home after dinner, and Pa went away to his work in the Big Woods. But for Laura and Mary and Ma, Butchering Time had only begun. There was a great deal for Ma to do, and Laura and Mary helped her.
All that day and the , Ma was trying out the lard in big iron pots on the cookstove. Laura and Mary carried wood and watched the fire. It must be hot, but not too hot, or the lard would burn. The big pots simmered and boiled, but they must not smoke. From time to time Ma skimmed out the brown crags. She put them in a cloth and squeezed out every bit of the lard, and the the crags away. She would use them to flavor johnny-cake later.
Crags were very good to eat, but Laura and Mary could have only a taste. They were too rich for little girls, Ma said.
Ma scraped and ed the head carefully, and then she boiled it till all the meat fell off the bones. She chopped the meat fih her chopping knife in the wooden bowl, she seaso with pepper and salt and spices. Then she mixed the pot-liquor with it, a away in a pan to cool. When it was cool it would cut in slices, and that was headcheese.
The little pieeat, lean and fat, that had the large pieces, Ma chopped and, chopped until it was all chopped fine. She seaso with salt and pepper and with dried sage leaves from the garden. Then with her hands she tossed and tur until it was well mixed, and she molded it into balls. She put the balls in a pan out in the shed, where they would freeze and be good to eat all wihat was the sausage.
When Butchering Time was over, there were the sausages and the headcheese, the big jars of lard and the keg of white salt-pork out in the shed, and iig the smoked hams and shoulders.
The little house was fairly bursting with good food stored away for the long wihe pantry and the shed and the cellar were full, and so was the attic.
Laura and Mary must play in the house now, for it was cold outdoors and the brown leaves were all falling from the trees. The fire in the cookstove never went out. At night Pa ba with ashes to keep the coals alive till m.
The attic was a lovely place to play. The large, round, colored pumpkins made beautiful chairs and tables. The red peppers and the onions dang<q>.99lib.</q>led overhead. The hams and the venison hung in their paper ings, and all the bunches of dried herbs, the spicy herbs for cooking and the bitter herbs for or medie, gave the place a dusty spicy smell.
Often the wind howled outside with a cold and lonesome sound. But iic Laura and Mary played house with the squashes and the pumpkins, and everything was snug and cosy.
Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named le. Laura had only a cob ed in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasnt Susans fault that she was only a cob. Sometimes Mary let Laura hold le, but she did it only when Susan couldnt see.
The best times of all were at night. After supper Pa brought his traps in from the shed to grease them by the fire. He rubbed them bright and greased the hinges of the jaws and the springs of the pans with a feather dipped in bears grease.
There were small traps and middle-sized traps and great bear traps with teeth in their jaws that Pa said would break a mans leg if they shut on to it.
While he greased the traps, Pa told Laura and Mary little jokes and stories, -and afterward he would play his fiddle.
The doors and windows were tightly shut, and the cracks of the window frames stuffed with cloth, to keep out the cold. But Black Susan, the cat, came a as she pleased, day and night, through the swinging door of the cat-hole itom of the front door. She alway<tt>99lib.t>s went very quickly, so the door would not catch her tail, when it fell shut behind her.
One night when Pa was greasing the traps he watched Black Susan e in, and he said:
"There was once a man who had two cats, a big cat and a little cat.”
Laura and Mary ran to lean on his knees ahe rest.
"He had two cats," Pa repeated, "a big cat and a little cat. So he made a big cat-hole in his door for the big cat. And then he made a little cat-hole for the little cat.”
There Pa stopped.
"But why couldnt the little cat-" Mary began.
"Because the big cat would," Laura interrupted. "Laura, that is very rude. You must never interrupt," said Pa. "But I see," he said, "that either one of you has more sehan the man who cut the two cat holes in his door." Then he laid away the traps, aook his fiddle out of its box and began to play. That was the best time of all.
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