THE BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS. 81 
brought my cabin on the edge of the river—a great ad- 
vantage in wet weather, I assure you, as you can now 
roll a barrel of whiskey into my yard in high water from 
a boat, as easy as falling off alog. It’s a great improve- 
ment, as toting it by land in a jug, as I used to do, eva- 
porated it too fast, and it became expensive. 
‘“ Just stop with me, stranger, a month or two, or a 
year, if you like, and you will appreciate my place. I 
can give you plenty to eat; for beside hog and hominy, 
you can have bear-ham, and bear-sausages, and a mattrass 
of bear-skins to sleep on, and a wildcat-skin, pulled off 
hull, stuffed with corn-shucks, for a pillow. That bed 
would put you to sleep if you had the rheumatics in 
every joint in your body. I call that ar bed, a quietus. 
“Then look at my ‘ pre-emption ’—the government 
aint got another like it to dispose of. Such timber, and 
such bottom land,—why you can’t preserve any thing 
natural you plant in it unless you pick it young, things 
thar will grow out of shape so quick. 
I once planted in those diggins a few potatoes and 
beets; they took a fine start, and after that, an ox team 
couldn’t have kept them from growing. About that time 
I went off to old Kaintuck on business, and did not hear 
from them things in three months, when I accidentally 
stumbled on a fellow who had drapped in at my place, 
with an idea of buying me out. 
“« How did you like things?” said I. 
“Pretty well,’ said he; ‘the cabin is convenient, 
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