HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY
650
quito netting was a most recent convenience. Flies, mosquitoes, gnats, millers and varieties of flying bugs were far more abundant than now. Matches were almost unknown; the flint and steel, with tinder or punk, was often used, and some fortunate people had a "sun-glass." Fire was carefully buried in ashes and kept over night, and if it unluckily "went out," the good wife had to send or go to a neighbor's, probably a mile away, and borrow some live coals. The house was so small and the presence of so many men was required to do all the farm work by hand, that she had no place or time for privacy or quiet rest; and yet, so admirably adapted to necessary surroundings is our human nature, that both men and women toiled contentedly and happily, amid these adverse conditions, in making and improving their pioneer homes.
The little clock or looking-glass shelf in the cabin was usually ornamented with a display of Indian stone-hatchets, and flint, spear and arrow-heads, and by strings of blown-out wild bird eggshells, ranging from the large sand-hill crane and wild-goose egg, to the tiny ones of the wren and humming bird. There were also a number of massasauga rattles, of varying sizes and number of buttons. Perhaps a wasp's nest, of unusual size or peculiar shape, decorated a corner of the single room.
All the slaughtering and the dressing and preserving of the pork and beef was done on the farm, and the farmer's wife "tried out" the lard and tallow. Whenever an animal was butchered a portion of the meat was distributed among the neighbors, and if it was a calf, the "rennet" was carefully preserved for some neighbor who occasionally made a cheese. The scarcity of fruit was a great discomfort for a number of years until the transplanted trees and cultivated fruit plants began to produce. The wild fruits were abundant during the short season, but they quickly passed, and for months there was no fruit to be had save the scant supply of very choice "preserves" that good house-wives carefully prepared. Dried pumpkin was the common substance for table fruit, during many months of the year. "No, thank'ee; not any pickle," said the hired man, "but please pass up the pumpkin sass." Bread (and pancakes for the winter breakfast), salt pork and potatoes, and milk gravy were the regular and monotonous daily diet. Game and fish were abundant, but the men were too busy to capture or prepare them for food. In winter the children caught great numbers of prairie chickens and quails in traps set with a "figure-four."
Often when the fish were "running," the men of a few neighboring families would procure a seine and have a day's profitable sport at the river, and sometimes the women accompanied them for a picnic. They selected a plate with gradually sloping banks and smooth even bottom, from waist to arm-pit deep, and the exciting sport began. A sufficient number of men to draw it taut and haul it steadily, handled the seine by the rods at its ends, and they swept it out into, and in a wide curve through, a portion of the stream, then gradually bringing the ends to the shore and carefully drawing it out to the center, where the fishes gathered, and so landing the shining, flopping catch. The small ones and nondescripts were tossed back into the water. A successful sweep of the net brought to land at least a bushel or two of fine pickerel or red horse, whichever was running. Pickerel were preferred. Sometimes they dressed and salted the larger portion of the catch as they were taken. A reliable man tells of helping to catch, near St. Charles in 1837 or 1838, with a four-rod seine, and dress and salt ten barrels of fine pickerel in one day. To insure a fair and equal division of the fish, the men would divide them into as many equally desirable piles as there were parties interested. Then a bystander was blindfolded, turned around a few times and placed with his back to the fish, and a person pointing to one of the piles, asked him "who shall have these?"-to which he replies by naming one of the party. Thus by questions and replies each pile was apportioned. These fishing excursions, turkey shoots and wolf-surrounds were the larger sports of the men; tea parties and quiltings interested the women; and dancing parties, singing schools, spelling matches, corn-huskings, and pumpkin-parings were the entertainments of the young people. Oxen did the greater part of the team work, and often drew merry parties of young folks to these frolics. Aside from the "prairie schooners" of the immigrants, it is doubtful if there was a half score of covered vehicles in Kane County as late as 1840.
Hired men working by the year received about eight or nine dollars per month and their board and washing; the hired girl had from six to ten shillings per week. A fairly good cow was
