318 RURAL MIC in a AN 



above and perhaps another to the unwalled pit that 

 served as cellar below. 



Equally crude was the hand-wrought furniture of 

 the house. First arose the one-post bedstead. "When 

 that was finished," Henry Eawland of Clinton County 

 relates, "my next work was chairs; I split a short 

 log in two, bored four holes in the round side with a 

 two-inch augur, and put in four stout sticks for legs, 

 and set it up, and 1 had a chair for two people; and 

 then I made another and had enough." For a table 

 they had a chest, while a broom was produced from 

 a pole. "A half a yard from the large end of the 

 pole we sawed into the wood for an inch or so all 

 around; took the bark off and shaved down long 

 slender shavings, or splints, till near the end ; lapped 

 them over and tied them down ; and we had a broom." 

 The family table was constructed from packing-box 

 boards.^ Light from within the dwelling came from 

 the open fire or from candles, made by a process of 

 dipping candle-wicking into melted tallow with a 

 sufficient repetition to gain the required diameter. 

 Eeal progress was achieved with the advent of candle- 

 molds; just before the Civil War kerosene lamps 

 appeared. "About 1858," writes R. C. Kedzie, "I 

 bought my first gallon of kerosene for $1.50, paying 

 $3 for a glass lamp and chimney for burning the 

 kerosene. The oil was of an inferior quality as com- 

 pared with the kerosene of to-day; contained much 

 naptha ; and gave a disagreeable odor in burning." ^ 



^"Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XIX, 621. 

 ^lUd., XXIX, 533. 



