WHAT THE HAND HAD TO DO In this wide, new world of the West there were but few artificial needs, and the differentiation of industries was alike impossible and undesired.

Each man was his own cook, his own tailor, his own mechanic in the simple ways demanded by the surroundings about him.

Each man was as good as his neighbour, for his neighbour as well as himself perforce practised a half-dozen crafts and suffered therefrom neither in his own esteem nor that of those about him.

The specialists of trade, of artisanship, of art, were not yet demanded in this environment where each man in truth "took care of himself," and had small dependence upon others.
In all the arts of making one's self comfortable in a womanless and hence a homeless land both Franklin and Battersleigh, experienced campaigners as they were, found themselves much aided by the counsel of Curly, the self-reliant native of the soil who was Franklin's first acquaintance in that land.

It was Curly who helped them with their houses and in their household supplies.