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Three fine deerskins lay on the floor, and one side of the room was hung with tapestry; but the most striking piece of furnishing in the room was an oak cupboard, sunk a foot into the wall. "I 'll show you something in that cabinet after luncheon, Kate; but now let's see your room."
Deerskins and cotton wraps were rolled in a bundle in another corner. Others hung on a line made of rawhide and stretched across one end of the room, fastened to wooden pins driven into the soft rock.
This incident gives a true character touch. It is not recorded of any of the men who turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses bearing the rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt and to insure the comfort of the family he had not seen for two years.
Here was a people who paid no rent, no taxes, owned no land yet lived always in abundance. In the box beside the sleeping platform were tea and sugar. Over the fire hung a copper teakettle of ancient design. In the sleeping-box, which was made of long-haired deerskins, were many robes of short-haired deerskin, fawn-skin and Siberian squirrel. To all these the two girls were more than welcome.
Of course, it would take several days to dry out the deerskins; so each morning when we were about to travel, the skins were unlaced and rolled up, to be re-stretched and placed over another fire the following evening.
When the mistress of the house observed him coming, she had pity on him, and presently prepared a bed for him with the best deerskins she had; when he came to the door he knew her hospitable heart and went in.
"One ought to wear deerskins, or something of that kind here." Weston heard nothing further, and remembered that, after all, the girl's sentiments were no concern of his. It was his business to prepare the supper and wait on the party; and he set about it.
I wore satin, and ribbon, and shining buckle, for I carried those gewgaws in my cargo, but my finery did not shame my bride's attire. She stood proud, and rounded, and supple in her deerskins, and a man might have gloried in her. Seven hundred Indians, glistening like snakes with oil and vermilion, squatted around us, but they held themselves as lifeless as marionettes.
The rest of us employed the evening in cutting out some moccasins, for not one of us had a pair of shoes to our feet, and should we have to make any portages we should seriously suffer in having to walk with our loads over the hard ground. We used but a small portion of our deerskins.
Then, on the side where Mr Ross and the boys were to sleep, the Indian bedmakers first spread out a deerskin wrapper, which during the day was used to hold all the various articles constituting a sleigh load, the whole then being securely lashed on by deerskin straps. It was made by sewing several large, well-dressed deerskins together.
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