22 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
— birch, or beech, or maple, the same summer and win¬ 
ter; and the dishes were soon smoking on the table, 
late the arm-chair, against the wall, from which one of 
the party was expelled. The arms of the chair formed 
the frame on which the table rested; and, when the 
round top was turned up against the wall, it formed 
the back of the chair, and was no more in the way than 
the wall itself. This, we noticed, was the prevailing 
fashion in these log-houses, in order to economize in 
room. There were piping-hot wheaten cakes, the flour 
having been brought up the river in batteaux, — no In¬ 
dian bread, for the upper part of Maine, it will be re¬ 
membered, is a wheat country, — and ham, eggs, and 
potatoes, and milk and cheese, the produce of the farm ; 
and also shad and salmon, tea sweetened with molasses, 
and sweet cakes, in contradistinction to the hot cakes not 
sweetened, the one white, the other yellow, to wind up 
with. Such we found was the prevailing fare, ordinary 
and extraordinary, along this river. Mountain cran¬ 
berries ( Vaccinium Vitis-Idceci ), stewed and sweetened, 
were the common dessert. Everything here was in pro¬ 
fusion, and the best of its kind. Butter was in such 
plenty that it was commonly used, before it was salted, 
to grease boots with. 
In the night we were entertained by the sound of 
rain-drops on the cedar-splints which covered the roof, 
and awaked the next morning with a drop or two in our 
eyes. It had set in for a storm, and we made up our 
minds not to forsake such comfortable quarters with this 
prospect, but wait for Indians and fair weather. It 
rained and drizzled and gleamed by turns, the livelong 
day. What we did there, how we killed the time, 
would perhaps be idle to tell; how many times we but- 
