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There were small, narrow, arched feet besides her own that trod the uncarpeted floors of outlying log-cabins with equal grace and dignity; bright, clearly opened eyes that were equally capable of looking unabashed upon princes and potentates, as a few later did, and the heiress of the county judge read her own beauty without envy in the frank glances and unlowered crest of the blacksmith's daughter.
Log-cabins were built in every Western county, tuns of hard cider were filled and emptied at all the Whig mass meetings; and as the canvass gained momentum and vehemence a curious kind of music added its inspiration to the cause; and after the Maine election was over, with its augury of triumph, every Whig who was able to sing, or even to make a joyful noise, was roaring the inquiry, "Oh, have you heard how old Maine went?" and the profane but powerfully accented response, "She went, hell-bent, for Governor Kent, and Tippecanoe, and Tyler too."
They built themselves log-cabins, not so convenient as those at Virginia, for they had not the miner's knack of reaping large results from such limited resources, but still substantial and comfortable. They enacted written laws, as ample as the Code Napoleon. Almost every day during our visit they met to revise this code and enact new provisions.
Why they chose to remain in this precise position, and why they neglected the better accommodations afforded by some fifteen or twenty log-cabins, that skirted the western side of the valley in particular, were subjects of conjecture.
They loved learning for learning's sake; and here, in the log-cabins of Marietta, eight hundred miles west of their beloved Boston, among many another good thing they did for posterity, they established the principle of public education at public cost, as a national principle. They were soldier colonists.
They talked appalling nonsense to each other with a delicious sentiment of its awful blood-curdling character. It was about noon when they reached the Strandholm saeter, which consisted of three turf-thatched log-cabins or chalets, surrounded by a green inclosure of half a dozen acres.
"My name's Edmonia Jackson," she had said, in answer to Mrs. Burnam's question; "but dey mos'ly calls me Janey. But laws, Mis', ef you 'll on'y let me stay yere, you all can call me what you want. Names is nothin', but I don' want to work in one o' them log-cabins; they 's too much like what our po' w'ites lives in. Give me brick or nothin'!"
"Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements the truth appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health. They were practically equal, common danger made them mutually dependent.
Knox started a "city" which he named Knoxville, the remains of which are still to be seen in the shape of ruined log-cabins, stone chimneys, foundations of hewed logs, a graveyard, etc., on the left hand side of the railway coming from Truckee, and about six miles from Tahoe.
But hardly had they built their slight log-cabins, covered with brush or bark, and broken ground for the corn-planting, when some small Indian war-parties, including that which had attacked Boon's company, appeared among them. Several men were "killed and sculped," as Boon phrased it; and the panic among the rest was very great, insomuch that many forthwith set out to return.
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