284 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



Would you believe, he added, that not many miles from 

 where this happened, "and where fifteen years ago, no 

 habitation belonging to civilized man was expected, and 

 very few ever seen, large roads are now laid out, culti- 

 vation has converted the woods into fertile fields; tav- 

 erns have been erected, and much of what we Americans 

 call comfort is to be met with? So fast does improve- 

 ment proceed in our abundant and free country." 



I have given a paraphrase of this "Episode" as a 

 further illustration of Audubon's tales of adventure. 

 There is doubtless a certain amount of invention, and 

 it reads like the setting of a dime novel incident, but we 

 see no reason to doubt the substantial truth of either 

 the local coloring or the fact. In answer to the question 

 of a recent commentator, 15 "Did remote prairie cabins 

 have grindstones and carving knives?" we would reply 

 that the knife and the ax have followed man to the 

 frontier posts of civilization everywhere, and without 

 the grindstone the ax is useless. As a concrete instance 

 in point, compare this minute entered in the Proprie- 

 tors' Book of Records of Perrytown, afterwards Sut- 

 ton, New Hampshire, 16 for the third day of September, 

 1770: "Voted a grindstone of about 8 shillings to be 

 sent up to Perrystown, for the use of the settlers there"; 

 the first settler had entered that wilderness but three 

 years before, and at the time this vote was taken the 

 number was five. 



15 John Burroughs, John James Audubon (Bibl. No. 87), p. 37. 

 "See History of Button, New Hampshire, compiled by Augustus 

 Harvey Worthen, pt. 1 (Concord, 1890). 



