House hunting

“ This crescent of mountains surrounds and shelters from the North winds the family mansion, which is situated in the woods at its foot. North of the peaks, the country is wild and rugged, but partly covered with thick forest, and affording the best hunting grounds in the world. There you may course the hare; track the deer; or if your tastes aspire to a fiercer conflict, hunt the wolf, the wild cat, or the bear—!”
“—Or the rattle-snake, copper-head, or moccasin! Thank you, I have no inclination for crusade against those mountaineers,” laughed Fairfax. ”

“ He saw people gathering at the kennels; saw men drink beer and eat sandwiches at the door of the huntsman’s house,—a long, low dwelling, with crumbling arched doorways like those of a monastery, watched them get away from the top of the moor, he among them; heard the horn, the whips; and saw the fox break cover.
Then came a rare run for five sweet miles—down a long valley—over quick-set hedges, with stiffish streams—another hill—a great combe—a lovely valley stretching out—a swerve to the right—over a gate—and the brush got at a farmhouse door. ”

“ An old hunter no longer, clad in dirty buckskin, and dwelling in a hovel, but a respectable-looking citizen of the semi-planter type, habited in decent broadcloth, wearing clean linen, living in a neat farm-house, surrounded by fenced fields, and kept by black domestics. ”

“ Fig. 290.
Details of author's log house, Wildlands.
[216] Of course, this forms no bar to a professional burglar, but there is nothing inside to tempt cracksmen, and these professional men seldom stray into the woods. The shutters serve to keep out cattle, small boys, and stray fishermen whose idle curiosity might tempt them to meddle with the contents of a house less securely fastened.
A house is never really finished until one loses interest in it and stops tinkering and planning homely improvements. ”

“ They had shrunk from the advent of the latter, and as a rule were found only in isolated tracts which were useless for tillage or pasturage, the dense forest forming their habitual dwelling-place and retreat of safety. From the best hunting-grounds, those where the great game teemed, they had been driven; yet these hunting-grounds were often untenanted by human beings for much of the year, being visited only at certain seasons by the cattle-owning nomads. ”

“ The hunters break down the farmer’s fences and frighten his cattle and sheep, often causing the loss of his calves or lambs, and injure his crops, while he has no redress because the landlord has reserved the right of hunting over the land. ”

“ In those days all that a trapper and hunter had to do was to get a few miles out into tall timber, build a good log cabin and hit a permanent job for the season. Deer, bear and fur-bearing animals were so plentiful that it only required a small territory to find game sufficiently plenty to keep the trapper on a lively gait all the time. In those days we made it more a specialty of hunting deer for the profit there was in it. We had built our cabin on the divide between the headwaters of the Cross fork of Kettel Creek and the headwaters of the East Fork of the Sinnamahoning. ”

“ A farmer passing through with his axe is but an intruder, and children straying home from school give one a feeling of solicitude at their unprotectedness. The pine woods are the red man's house, and it may be hazardous even yet for the gray farmhouses to stand so near the eaves of the forest. ”

“ For a search-party organized on a strict military principle had carefully ransacked every portion of the house and cellar and also the attic,—where no traces betrayed recent habitation,—examined all the vineyard, hedges, shrubbery, and even the boughs of the great trees, and invaded the stable, barn, crib, ice-house, poultry yards, dairy, kennel, dove-cote, the miscellaneous outbuildings, sties and byres, all empty, devoid even of the usual domestic animals—absolutely with no result. ”

“ At the distance of every league stone houses have been erected, where travellers can find shelter either from the storm or from the attacks of wolves or bears, for these, too, abound in the forests, and in summer there is fine hunting among them. ”

“ We had now reached the last settlement on the frontier, and after a couple of hours’ walk, from our last place of lodging, we reached the last house, on the outer verge of the wilderness. It was a small, newly erected log hut, occupied by a hunter of the name of Roberts, and distant about 20 miles from, and south-west of Potosi. Our approach here was also heralded by dogs. Had we been wolves or panthers, creeping upon the premises at midnight, they could not have performed their duty more noisily. Truly this was a very primitive dwelling, and as recent in its structure as it was primitive. ”

“ Perhaps, as it was his choice to reside in a wilderness, isolated from his own species, he might have thought it prudent to conceal his place of abode from the Indians, by erecting his cabin in an inhospitable waste, difficult of access, where there were no pastures to invite the deer or buffalo, and no game to allure the savage hunter, and where his family remained secure, while he roved with his gun over some hunting-ground at a convenient distance. ”

“ Being constantly on the move, they could erect no very permanent dwellings; and a rough lean-to shelter was doubtless their only protection from the elements. Hunting was the major activity of the men ”

“ Hunters arrived, from time to time, in charge of boys of the boy Jack species—the young gentlemen canter up on thorough-bred hacks spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or more modest and sportsman-like, divest themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. ”

“ And now the half-weaned calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel against the left-hand wall, come out and set up a silly answer to that terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of milk.
Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; for imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. ”

“ We build a mound hut near the house, and put there the blankets and stores. Sometime they stay there for years, but no one would take from a cache. If one has plenty of wood by the seashore or in the forest, he may cord it and go his way and no one will touch it. A deer hangs on a tree where dogs may not reach it, but no stray hunter would slice even a piece. ”

“ In the gray dawn the huntsmen arise refreshed, have breakfast, and go on their way. If they reach a good hunting-ground, which is visited every winter, they stay as long as they think fit. Here and there they find a log-hut built in previous years and still serviceable for shelter ”

“ As the inhabitants move about, or get into and out of their hammocks while replenishing the nightly fires, whose smoke is the only defence against the mosquitoes and other winged pests, the whole building rocks, the joints creak, and the house seems on the point of coming down. But the junctions of the beams and posts are so firmly tied that they are far stronger than they look, and however fragile the shed may seem, it is quite equal to any strain they may have to endure.
In the interior, however, the huts are more of a complicated character, and have walls as well as a roof. ”

“ In some instances these small farmhouses and homesteads are completely gone; in others the buildings remain, but in a tumble-down state; in others the house is gone, leaving the barn for use as a barn or as a cattle-shed; in others the out-buildings are gone, and the house, with rotten thatch, broken windows, rotten door-sills, and all threatening to fall, remains as the dwelling of a half-starved and ragged family of labourers, the grand-children, perhaps, of the decent family of small farmers that formerly lived happily in this very house. ”

“ She makes one step towards the house, as if bent upon espionage. Again she pauses, and appears undecided. The chinks between the logs are open all round the hut—so, too, the interstices between the hewn planks of the door. No one can approach near to the walls without being seen from the inside; and a listener would be sure of being discovered. Is it this reflection that stays her in her steps? ”

“ When the sun nears the western horizon, the hunter and the slaves return home, and the housewife, who has been enjoying the "coolth" squatting on her dwarf stool at her hut-door, and puffing the preparatory pipe,—girds her loins for the evening meal, and makes every one "look alive." When the last rays are shedding their rich red glow over the tall black trees which hem in the village, all torpidity disappears from it. ”

“ When his land is properly registered, his next care is to provide himself with a horse, a plough, and other implements of agriculture; a rifle, a fowling piece, some ammunition, and a large dog of the blood-hound breed, to hunt deer. We will suppose him arrived at the place of his destination in spring, as soon as the ground is clear of frost. No sooner is the arrival of a new settler circulated, than, for many miles round, his neighbours flock to him: they all assist in erecting his hut; this is done with logs; a bricklayer is only wanting to make his chimney and oven. ”

“ In a remote corner of the yard, a small party of sedate, business-like individuals are rolling up the fleeces upon a couple of small sloping platforms, and handing them over the wall to others who are building them upon carts, to be carried to the storing-house. ”

“ Houses The houses are built of wood, and are raised above the ground on piles, so that when the rainy season comes and the plains are flooded, the floors are left high and dry. In the dry season the cattle are stabled under the houses. A stable under your bedroom is not perhaps the pleasantest arrangement that could be imagined, but in parts of the country there are bands of robbers who spend their evenings in stealing cattle. When the robbers try to move the animals, the animals make a noise, wake the owner, and give him a chance to prevent the theft. ”

“ To travel on was impossible, so we built ourselves a lodge, and tried to trap and kill animals enough to last us for food till the snow should disappear. They became, however, scarcer and scarcer, and we began to fear that the supply of food we had collected would not last us out till summer. We had, however, a good number of skins, and though we had intended to sell them, we made some warm clothing of them instead.
“We had too much to do during the day in hunting and collecting wood for our fire to allow of the time hanging very heavy on our hands. ”

“ It will break up sometimes blue-hot and bubbling, in the midst of a clear creek, or make a sucking, scalding quicksand at the ford. These outbreaks had the kind of morbid interest for the Pocket Hunter that a house of unsavory reputation has in a respectable neighborhood, but I always found the accounts he brought me more interesting than his explanations, which were compounded of fag ends of miner’s talk and superstition. ”

“ Where the Pass widened to the Valley above the Sheriff's homestead, they came on a huge miner's tent boarded half way up as for winter residence, with eight tow-headed half-clad urchins thumb in mouth staring out from the open mosquito wire door. There was a smell of onions and frying pork.
"What! a homestead, here, Wayland? D' y'r homesteaders farm on th' perpendicular, or the level; an' what will they grow on these rocks?"
The Ranger had reined in his pony and was running his glance up the precipice face for the posts marking the bounds.
"What do they grow? Water-power, I guess! ”

“ And in every house which his bent form passes by there are doors, and even they stare at him with such a watchful and intent look, as if behind each there stood a man ready to rush forth upon him. And behind the fences, behind the long fences, stretches forth the invisible distance. There are gardens and vegetable beds, and surely no one can be there in this cold winter night; but if someone lies hidden there and looks at him through the dark crevices with strange and wily eyes, he will not be able to discover his presence. ”

“ The most undaunted huntsman, the best acquainted with the wood's nocturnal terrors, fled like a timid roe in speechless agony, and, heedless where his footsteps bore him, ran breathless to the nearest hut, the nearest cabin, to meet some human soul to whom to tell his horrible adventure, yet ne'er could find words in which to frame it. ”

“ On the border was a cottage within which were a wooden man and woman seated at table, and a wooden dog beneath, all the size of life; on pressing a spring, the woman commenced spinning, and the dog barked furiously. On the lake were wooden swans, painted to the life; some floating, others on the nest among the rushes; while a wooden sportsman, crouched among the bushes, was preparing his gun to take deadly aim. ”

“ Starved rabble, as long as it hunted for food, avoided its rivals in the chase; but when night, perforce, brought cessation of the hunt, the herding instinct reasserted itself and lasted through the hours of darkness. As autumn sharpened, guarded fires were lit in cellars where they 114could not be seen from above and fed with broken furniture, with fragments of doors and palings; and one by one, human beasts would slink in and huddle down to the warmth—some uncertainly, seeking a new and untried refuge, and others returning to their shelter of the night before. ”

“ In the hunting season, they leave their houses, gather together in companies, and with their families, go to the most deserted places up near the mountains where there is plenty of game. The huts in which they live during this hunting season are flimsy cabins, with mats thrown over them. These mats the squaws carry when a move is made. ”