NOTES FROM THE PRAIRIE 101 



of food would make them fat. They were 

 allowed to run wild to save the trouble of car- 

 ing for them, and when the pork-barrel was 

 empty they sliot one. 



"Everybody drove oxen and used lumber- 

 wagons with a board across the box for a seat. 

 How did we ever endure it, riding over the 

 roadless prairies ! Then, any one who o\\ ned 

 a horse was considered an. aristocrat and de- 

 spised accordingly. One yoke of oxen that we 

 had were not to be sneezed at as a fast team. 

 They were trained to trot, and would make 

 good time too." [I love to hear oxen praised. 

 An old Michigan farmer, an early settler, told 

 me of a famous pair of oxen he once had; he 

 spoke of them with great affection. They 

 would draw any log he hitched them to. 

 When they had felt of the log and found they 

 had their match, he said they would nudge each 

 other, give their tails a kink, lift up their 

 heads, and say eh-h-h-h ! then something had 

 to come.] 



"One phrase you used in your last letter — 

 * the start from the stump ' • — shows how local- 

 ity governs the illustrations we use. The start 

 was not from the stuinp here, quite the reverse. 

 Nature made the land ready for man's hand, 

 and there were no obstacles in the shape of 

 stumps and stones to overcome. Probably in 

 the East a pine-stump fence is not regarded as 

 either particularly attractive or odd; but to 

 me, when I first saw one in York State, it was 

 both. I had never even heard of the stumps 



