Jacob Glover's Shanty

Jacob Glover built a shanty using a large, fallen pine for one side of the shanty, with other timbers on it. For a bedstead and table he bored holes in the pine for the width of the bed and slipped a pole on the end of those pegs, with holes bored in it to match with a leg under each end – the table the same – with boards on top for covers. 

For chairs, he made benches; for a fire-place, he laid down a few stones in one corner for a hearth, then built up a back-wall with a few more stones and the fire-place was complete and ready for a fire. Many times Jacob had been told to build a fire as follows:

" A back log and a fore stick, and a stick on behind; middle stick, a top stick, then the fire and pine."

As floors in shanties in those days had not come into fashion and considered an expensive luxury, Jacob moved in LITERALLY on the "ground floor" – where a great many wealthy speculators try to get to-day, although not exactly of the same kind of a ground floor. 

He built a little stable by the side of another pine tree for his oxen, bought a little feed for them and then went to chopping. He chopped a couple of acres, with as good courage as he ever chopped in his life. He burned the brush and then started in to log it up, so that he could plant some potatoes and corn. He took his oxen out, hooked on to a big pine log and turned it around so as to give himself the advantage of down - grade; he drew another log parallel to it and rolled them together. This made a booming sound that definitely startled him or anyone in earshot. Jacob stood as if awakened from a dream, looked around and began to think almost out loud. He might well have said to himself: "It will wear out one life to clear off these Pines, then another life to get rid of the stumps and, when done, the deed will not hold the sand from blowing away. " He made up his mind, right there and then, that he never would do another stroke on the place. He at once drove up to the stable, hooked his oxen to his homemade sled, drove up to the shanty and told his wife to pack up what things they had, for he was going to get away from the place just as far as the oxen could drag them that day. He was not going to wear himself out clearing out those miserable pines.