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THE AXE.

BUT now there comes to be associated with the gun another implement, homely enough, but which has played a conspicuous part in the drama of American civilization. It is the Yankee axe.

Perhaps I may give a sufficiently graphic picture of society during the axe period of the country's history, by a series of sketches relating to an event of perennial interest to humanity. Will you have a description of a western wedding in the quaint old days of pioneer life?

Early on a fine morning, there rides up to the door of a log-cabin, one of our Young American friends, about eighteen years of age, on his father's best horse and best saddle-if that worthy gentleman own a saddle-the likelihood is that it is nothing but a blanket. In the door stands a blithe and buxom lassie of fifteen summers, but fully grown and finely moulded. Saluting her frankly, he presents his horse fair to her. Without recourse to block or stile, she lays one hand confidingly on his knee, the other on the horse's rump, and throws herself gracefully into the pillion behind him. Thus riding double, the start for the parson's, three or four of of his male friends bearing them company. There

are no roads except bridle-paths, and they therefore ride in Indian file. The old fighting times have taught them one good lesson, to hold their tongues unless they have something to say; hence the party is a silent one. Half a dozen or a dozen miles are passed, when a clearing in the woods is gained, in the centre of which stands a lowly cabin. In its door you shall see one, two, three, four-as it were, a series of short steps-of tow-headed urchins, who announce to the inmates the approach of the company. The foremost rider gives the customary hail, "Hillo, the house there." In obedience to this summons there appears upon the threshold a large, raw-boned gentleman, not in cassock, bands and surplice, not even in clerical black, but in a linsey-woolsey or buckskin hunting-shirt. Seeing the strangers, he courteously invites them to alight and come in. Before this invitation is complied with, however, the candidate for matrimonial honors inquires, is the parson at home? His interlocutor responds that he is that person. Whereupon the young man announces, "You see, this young woman and me have come here to git married; kin you do it?"

"Well, I reckon."

"Well, we're in a great hurry, kin you do it quick?"

"Certainly."

The ceremony is proceeded with as regularly as if it were in a cathedral. The young people's hands are joined, and the good man's benediction is given as he pronounces them man and wife. The new husband asks,

"Is that all, parson?"

A BACKWOODS MARRIAGE.

"That's all I can do for you."

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Straightening to his full height with great dignity, the young man inquires,

"Well, parson, what's the damage?"

Parsons are modest men. With a blush and a stammer, our clerical friend intimates that the less said upon that subject the better.

"Oh, no, parson," responds the young backwoods

man.

"I wish you to understand that I don't choose to begin life on tick.”

Simple folk that they were, they held that a wife who was not worth paying the parson for, was not worth having. Thus urged, the clergyman signi fies,

"Anything that is pleasant to you is agreeable to me."

Whereupon the young husband requests one of his friends "to fetch it in off the horse's neck."

Doubtless, the wisest of you, if you have never lived upon the frontier, would be puzzled to tell what that is on the horse's neck. It turns out to be a corn-shuck horse-collar. This is the parson's fee, and right glad he is to get it.

The bridal train return as they have come, until within a half mile of the bride's father's cabin, when all the young men of the party, save the one with the lady behind, start at a helter-skelter gallop through the woods, dodging the limbs, jumping the fallen trees, yelling and screaming as if they were crazy. This is what they call the bottle race. In the door of the cabin stands a gentleman, his arm uplifted, grasping in his fist a great black bottle, which he is shaking desperately, as if to incite the racers to

greater speed. Up rushes the foremost of the horsemen, clutches "black Betty," gives her one triumphant wave around his head in token of his victory, applies her mouth to his mouth, imbibing the consequences, and then returns to our young couple, that they may drink their own health and happiness, in the best bald-face whisky the settlement furnishes.

And now here are assembled all the neighbors from miles around-men, women, children and dogs. The men have been amusing themselves with the usual athletic sports of the border, flinging the rail, hurling the tomahawk, pitching quoits, wrestling, running foot and horse races, and shooting at a mark. The women are mostly busied about the barbecue. A trench has been dug, in one end of which you will see the flames blazing, in another the coals smoulderHere the meats are being prepared for masti

ing. cation.

But it is now high noon, dinner-time the world over, so think our simple-minded farmers. The grand repast is served beneath a rustic arbor, formed by leafy branches. Here, upon the puncheon slabs, are served bear meat, buffalo meat, venison, wild turkey, and, as the daintiest of all the delicacies, baked 'possum. For side dishes, you have "big hominy," pyramids of corn dodgers, with plenty of milk and butter, if the country be far enough advanced for cows. If not, bear's oil must take the place. It is used as a sop for bread, as gravy for meat, and is pronounced wonderful by those who like it. The men draw their hunting-knives from their belts, commence the business of carving, using

THE WEDDING DINNER.

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their fingers for forks. Every mother's skirt is clutched by her brood of little ones, begging for dodger and gravy, while around every hunter, fawn and leap his hounds, begging for their share of the repast.

Shall I attempt a description of their personal appearance? They are all large, very large, men, women, and babies. The men averaging over six feet in height, and broad in proportion, are clad in deerskin hunting-shirts, leggins, and moccasins of the same material. When a gentleman wishes a pair of stockings, he fills his moccasins with dried leaves. Around the waist is a belt with a sheath for the hunting-knife, and another for the tomahawk. Descending from the shoulders are straps supporting the bullet-pouch and powder-horn. The head is surmounted by a coon-skin cap, the tail of the animal gracefully pendent between the shoulders-the only ornament upon the person masculine.

But what am I to do with the gear of the ladies? While the fighting is going on, when the small stock of store goods brought from the older settlements has been exhausted and there are no stores, before the home-made looms can be put in operation, the women are obliged to fall back upon the material employed by their husbands and sons, and thus manufacture their garments from deer-skin. can readily conceive that when a lady has been thoroughly drenched in a hard shower, and is drying herself before a blazing fire, her garments shall be a very tight fit, but now the spinning-jenny and the loom are in daily use, and they are dressed in cloth of their own making. Copperas, madder, and the

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