On the appointed day for the "raising," the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women with their pots and kettles.

Every child toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden dishes and spoons.

These free givers of labor had something of the Oriental's notion of the sacred ratification of friendship by a feast.
The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet.

The timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon.

To make the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched and grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown so.