Little house in the big woods

chapter one Little House in the Big Woods

Pa skinned the deer carefully and salted and stretched the hides, for he would make soft leather of them. Then he cut up the meat, and sprinkled salt over the pieces as he laid them on a board.
  Standing on end in the yard was a tall length cut from the trunk of a big hollow tree. Pa had driven nails inside as far as he could reach from each end. Then he stood it up, put a little roof over the top, and cut a little door on one side near the bottom. On the piece that he cut out he fastened leather hinges; then he fitted it into place, and that was the little door, with the bark still on it.
  After the deer meat had been salted several days, pa cut a hole near the end of each piece and put a string through it. Laura watched him do this, and then she watched him hang the meat on the nails in the hollow log.
  He reached up through the little door and hung meat on nails, as far as he could reach. Then he put a ladder against the log, climbed up to the top, moved the roof to one side, and reached down inside to hang meat on those nails.
   Then pa put the the roof back again, climbed down the ladder, and said to laura:
  "Run over to the chopping block and fetch me some of those green hickory chips---new, clean, white ones."
   So laura ran to the block where pa chopped wood,and filled her aprom with the fresh, sweet-smelling chips.
Just inside the little door in the hollow log pa built a fire of tiny bits of bark and moss, and he laid some of the chips on it very carefully.
   Instead of burning quickly, the green chips smoldered and filled the hollow log with thick, choking smoke. Pa shut the door,and a little smoke squeezed through the crack around it and a little smoke came out through the roof, but most of it was shut in with the meat.
   "There's nothing better then good hickory smoke," pa said. "That will make good venison that will keep anywhere, in any weather."
   Then he took his gun, and slinging his ax on his shoulder he went away to the clearing to cut down some more trees.
  Laura and ma watched the fire for several days. When smoke stopped coming through the cracks, laura would bring more hickory chips and ma would put them on the fire under the meat. All the time there was a little smell of smoke in the yard, and when the door was opened a thick, smoky, meaty smell came out.
   At last pa said the vension had smoked long enough. Then they let the fire go out, and pa took all the strips and pieces of meat out of the hollow tree. Ma wrapped each piece neatly in paper and hung them in the attic where they would keep safe and dry.
   One morning pa went away before daylight with the horses and wagon, and that night he came home with a wagonload of fish. The big wagon box was piled full, and some of the fish were as big as laura. Pa had gone to lake pepin and caught them all with a net.
  Ma cut large slices of flaky white fish, without one bone, for laura and mary. They all feasted on the good, fresh fish. All they did not eat fresh was salted down in barrels for the winter.
   Pa owneda pig. It ran wild in the big woods, living on acorns and nuts amd roots. Now he caught it and put it in a pen made of logs, to fatten. He would butcher it as soon as the weather was cold enough to keep the pork frozen.
   Once in the middlw of the night laura woke up and heard the pig squealing. Pa jumped out of bed, snatched his gun from the wall, and ran outdoors. Then laura heard the gun go off, once, twice.
  When pa came back, he told what had happened. He had seen a big black bear standing beside the pigpen. The bear was reaching into the pen to grab the pig, and the pig was running and squealing. Pa saw this in the starlight and he fired quickly. But the light was dim and in his haste he missed the bear. The bear ran away into the woods, not hurt at all.
  Laura was sorry pa did not get the bear.
  She liked bear meat so much. Pa was sorry, too, but he said:
  "Anyway, i saved the bacon."
  The garden behind the little house had been growing all summer. It was so near the house that the deer did not jump the fence and eat the vegetables in the daytime, and at night jack kept them away. Sometimes in the morning there were little hoof-prints among the carrots and the cabbages. But jacks tracks were there, to, and the deer had jumped right out again.
  Now the potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips and cabbages were gatheres and stored in the cellar, for freezing nights had come.
  Onions were made into long ropes, braidee together by their tops, and then were hung in the attic beside the wreaths of red peppers strung on threads. The pumpkins and the squashes were piled in orange and yellow and green heaps in the attics corners.
  The barrels of salted fish were in the pantry, and yellow cheeses were stacked on the pantry shelves.
  Then one day uncle henry came riding out of the big woods. He had come to help pa butcher. Ma's big butchers knife was already sharpened, and uncle henry had brought aunt polly's butcher knife.
   Near the pigpen pa and uncle henry built a bonfire, and heated a great kettle of water over it. When the water was boiling they went to kill the hog. Then laura ran and hid her head on the bed and stopped her ears with her fingers so she could not hear the hog squeal.
   "It doesnt hurt him, laura," pa said. "We do it so quickly." but she did not want to hear him squeal.
  In a minute she took one finger cautiously out of an ear, and listened. The hog had stopped squealing. After that, butchering time was great fun.
  It was such a busy day, with so much to see and do. Uncle Henry and pa were jolly, and there would be spare-ribs for dinner, and pa had promised laura and mary the bladder and the pigs tail.
  As soon as the hog was dead pa and uncle henry lifted it up and down in the boiling water till it was well scalded. Then they laid it on a board and scraped it with their knives, and all the bristles came off. After that they hung the hog in a tree, took out the insides, and left it hanging to cool.
   When it was cool they took it down and cut it up. There were hams and shoulders, side meat and spare-ribs and belly. There was the heart and the liver amd the tongue, and the head to be made into headchees, and the dishpan full of bits to be made into sausages.
  The meat was laid on a board in the backdoor shed, and every piece was sprinkled with salt. The hams and the shoulders were put to pickle in brine, for they would be smoked, like the vension, in the hollow log.
   "You cant beat hickory-cured ham," pa said. He was blowing up the bladder. It made a little white balloon, and he tied the end tight with a string and gave it to mary and laura to play with. They could throw it into the air amd spat it back and forth with their hands. Or it would bounce along the ground and they could kick it. But even better fun than a balloon was the pigs tail.
   Pa skinned it for them carefully, and into the large end he thrust a sharpend stick. Ma opened the front of the cookstove and raked hot coals out into the iron hearth. Then laura and mary took turns holding the pigs tail over the coals.
  It sizzled and fried, and drops of fat dripped off of it and blazed on the coals. Ma sprinkled it with salt. Their hands and their faces got very hot, and laura burned her finger, but she was so excited she did not care. Roasting the pigs tail was such fun that it was hard to play fair, taking turns.
   At last it was done. It was nicely browned all over, amd how good it smelled! They carried it into the yard to cool it, and even before it was cool enough they began tasting it and burned their tongues.
  They ate every little bit of meat off the bones, and then they gave the bones to jack. And that was the end of the pigs tail. There would not be another one till next year.
  Uncle henry went home after dinner, and pa went away to his work in the big woods. But for laura and mary and ma, butchering time had only begun. There was a great deal for ma to do, and laura and mary helped her.
  All that day and the next, ma was trying out the lard in big iron pots on the cookstove. Laura and mary carried wood and watched the fire. It must be hot, but not too hot, or the lard would burn. The big pots simmered and boiled, but they must not smoke. From time to time ma skimmed out the brown cracklings. She put them in a cloth and squeezed out every bit of the lard, and then she put the cracklings away. She would use them to flavor johnny-cake later.
  Cracklings were very good to eat, but laura and mary could only have a taste. They were too rich for little girls, ma said.
   Ma scraped and cleaned the head carefully, and then she boiled it till all the meat fell off the bones. She choppee the meat fine with her chopping knife in the wooden bowl, she seasoned it with pepper and salt and spices. Then she mixed the pot-liquor with it, and set it away in a pan to cool. When it was cool it would cut in slices, and that was head-cheese.
   The little pieces of meat, lean and fat, that had been cut off the large pieces, ma choppee and chopped until it was all chopped fine. She seasoned it with salt and pepper and with dried sage leaves from the garden. Then with her hands she tossed and turned it until it was well mixed, and she molded it into balls. She put the balls in a pan out in the shed, where they would freeze amd be good to eat all winter. That was the sausage.
   When butchering time was over, there were the sausages and the headcheese, the big jars of lard and the keg of white salt-pork out in the shed, and in the attic hung the smoked hams and shoulders.
   The little house was fairly bursting with good food stored away for the long winter. The pantry and the shed and the cellar were full, and so was the attic.
   Laura and mary must play in the house now, for it was cold outdoors and the brown leaves were all falling from the trees. The fire in the cookstove never went out. At night pa banked it with ashes to keep the coals alive till morning.
   The attic was a lovely place to play. The large, round, colored pumpkins made beautiful chairs and tables. The red peppers and the onions dangled overhead. The hams and the venison hung in their paper wrappings, and all the bunches dried herbs, the spicy herbs for cooking and the bitter herbs for medicine, gave the place a dusty-spicy smell.
   Often the wind howled outside with a cold and lonsome sound. But in the attic laura and mary played house with the squashes and the pumpkins, and everything was snug and cosy.
   Mary was bigger then laura, and she had a rag doll named nettie. Laura had only a corn-con wrapped in a handkerchief, bit it was a good doll. It was named susan. It wasnt susans fault that she was only a corncob. Sometimes mary let laura hold nettie, but she did it only when susan couldnt see.
   The best times of all were at night. After supper pa brought his traps in from the shed to grease them by the fire. He rubbed them bright and greased the hinges of the jaws and the springs of the pans with a feather dipped in bears grease.
   There were small traps and middle-sized traps and great bear traps with teeth in their jaws that pa said would break a mans leg if they shut onto it.
  While he greased the traps, pa told laura and mary little jokes and stories,and afterward he would play his fiddle.
   The doors and windows were tightly shut, and the cracks of the window frames stuffed with cloth, to keep out the cold. But black susan, the cat, came and went as she pleased, day and night, through the swinging door of the cat-hole in the bottom of the front door. She always went very quickly, so the door would not catch her tail when it fell shut behind her.
   One night when pa was greasing the traps he watched black susan come in, and he said:
  "There was once a man who had two cats, a big cat and a little cat."
   Laura and mary ran to lean on his knees and hear the rest.
   "He had two cats," pa repeated, "a big cat and a little cat. So he mad a big cat-hole in his door for the big cat. And then he made a little cat-hole for the little cat."
  There pa stopped.
  "But why couldnt the little cat---" mary began.
  "Because the big cat wouldnt let it," laura interrupted.
   "Laura, that is very rude. You must never interrupt," pa said.
  "But i see," he said, "that ethier one of yoi has more sense than the man who cut the twocat-holes on his door."
   Then he laid away the traps, and he took his fiddle out of its box and begain to play. That was the best time of all.