12 The Winning of the West 



mill, made of two limestones in a hollow sycamore 

 log. Until flax could be grown the women were 

 obliged to be content with lint made from the bark 

 of dead nettles. This was gathered in the spring- 

 time by all the people of a station acting together, 

 a portion of the men standing guard while the rest, 

 with the women and children, plucked the dead 

 stalks. The smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many 

 dozen cuts of linen from this lint, which was as fine 

 as flax but not so strong. 17 



Neither hardship nor danger could render the 

 young people downhearted, especially when several 

 families, each containing grown-up sons and daugh- 

 ters, were living together in almost every fort. The 

 chief amusements were hunting and dancing. There 

 being no permanent ministers, even the gloomy Cal- 

 vinism of some of the pioneers was relaxed. Long 

 afterward one of them wrote, in a spirit of quaint 

 apology, that "dancing was not then considered 

 criminal," 18 and that it kept up the spirits of the 

 young people, and made them more healthy and 

 happy; and recalling somewhat uneasily the merri- 

 ment in the stations, in spite of the terrible and in- 

 terminable Indian warfare, the old moralist felt 

 obliged to condemn it, remarking that, owing to the 

 lack of ministers of the gospel, the impressions made 

 by misfortune were not improved. 



Though obliged to be very careful and to keep 

 their families in forts, and in spite of a number of 



17 McAfee MSS. 18 Do. 



