202 WILD SPORTS IN THE TAR WEST. 



work with a will ; a carpenter was found to plane the 

 chips, we formed the tops and bottoms with a stamp, 

 and I colored the sides with logwood. The pill-box 

 manufacture was soon in full play, and I made them as 

 if I had done nothing else all my life. But all things 

 must have an end, even the manufacture of pill-boxes, 

 and my genius was again left fallow Yogel came 

 once more to my assistance, and I became a chocolate 

 maker, gaming a dollar a day by pounding it in an iron 

 mortar. 



Shortly afterwards I heard of a dealer in tobacco 

 who was out of pipe-stems. These pipe-stems are 

 made from the reeds or canes growing on the banks of 

 rivers, and other moist places in the Southern States, 

 and as all the rivers had risen very high, he could find 

 no one to venture among the .snakes and mosquitoes. 

 This was something more in my way than sitting 

 behind a pestle and mortar. 



I bargained with a companion, and, with a few 

 dollars in our pockets to cover the most necessary ex- 

 penses, we started off for Tennessee, by the " Algonquin.'* 

 There were plenty of canes at one of the places where 

 the vessel stopped for wood ; I jumped on shore, and 

 the owner of the wood, who dwelt in a small house 

 close at hand, agreed to board and lodge us at two 

 dollars a head per week. We at once landed our bag- 

 gage, and set to work next morning. 



These reeds grow in immense thickets on the banks 

 of the IVIississippi ; but we only cut the smallest for 

 pipe-stems. They were about the thickness of a large 

 quill just above the root, from four to six feet long, 

 the joints being from eight to sixteen inches. The 



