24 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
expense, especially on the score of cattle and fences. 
They might live across the river, perhaps, but not on 
the ^ame side. 
The chickens here were protected by the dogs. As 
McCauslin said, “ The old one took it up first, and she 
taught the pup, and now they had got it into their heads 
that it would n’t do to have anything of the bird kind 
on the premises.” A hawk hovering over was not al¬ 
lowed to alight, but barked off by the dogs circling un¬ 
derneath ; and a pigeon, or a “ yellow-hammer,” as they 
called the pigeon-woodpecker, on a dead limb or stump, 
was instantly expelled. It was the main business of 
their day, and kept them constantly coming and going. 
One would rush out of the house on the least alarm 
given by the other. 
When it rained hardest, we returned to the house, 
and took down a tract from the shelf. There was the 
Wandering Jew, cheap edition, and. fine print, the Crimi¬ 
nal Calendar, and Parish’s Geography, and flash novels 
two or three. Under the pressure of circumstances, we 
read a little in these. With such aid, the press is not 
so feeble an engine, after all. This house, which was a 
fair specimen of those on this river, was built of huge 
logs, which peeped out everywhere, and were chinked 
with clay and moss. It contained four or five rooms. 
There were no sawed boards, or shingles, or clapboards, 
about it; and scarcely any tool but the axe had been 
used in its construction. The partitions were made of 
long clapboard-like splints, of spruce or cedar, turned 
to a delicate salmon color by the smoke. The roof and 
sides were covered with the same, instead of shingles 
and clapboards, and some of a much thicker and larger 
size were used for the floor. These were all so straight 
