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,’® “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,” 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. 
* John Burroughs, John James Audubon (Bibl. No. 87), p. 37. 
*See History of Sutton, New Hampshire, compiled by Augustus 
Harvey Worthen, pt. 1 (Concord, 1890). 
