that the establishment of English colonies would be fatal to the interests of the Indian race. He strode through the forests like a giant, inciting the tribes to war. He urged a union of all the Indian nations from the Lakes to the Mississippi for the common defense of the race.

There lived near Detroit a beautiful Indian girl called Catherine. The English commander, Gladwyn, was pleased with her and showed her many favors, and she formed a warm friendship for him.

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One lovely day in May this girl came to the fort 10 and brought Gladwyn a pair of elkskin moccasins. She appeared very sad.

"Catherine,” said Gladwyn, "what troubles you?"

She did not answer at once.

There was a silent struggle going on in her heart. She had formed a strong attachment is for the white people and she was also devoted to her own

race.

"To-morrow," she said at length, "Pontiac will come to the fort with sixty of his chiefs. Each will be armed with a gun, which will be cut short and hidden under his 20 blanket. The chief will ask to hold a council. He will then make a speech and offer a belt of wampum as a peace offering. As soon as he holds up the belt, the chiefs will spring up and shoot the officers and the Indians outside will attack the English. Every Englishman will be killed. 25 The French inhabitants will be spared."

Gladwyn made immediate preparations to avoid the danger which threatened them. The soldiers were put under arms. Orders were given to have them drawn up in line on the arrival of the Indians the following day. 30 The next morning Indian canoes approached the fort from the eastern shores. They contained Pontiac and his

sixty chiefs. At ten o'clock the chiefs marched to the fort in fantastic procession. Each wore a colored blanket and was painted, plumed, or in some way gayly ornamented. As Pontiac entered the fort a glance showed him that his s plot was discovered. He passed in amazement through glittering rows of steel. He made a speech expressing friendship; but he did not dare to lift the wampum belt which was to have been the signal for attack. He was allowed to depart peaceably.

ΙΟ

When he found that his plot had been discovered his anger knew no bounds. He gathered his warriors from every hand and laid siege to Detroit. He was defeated, and with his defeat ended the power of the Indian tribes in the region of the Upper Lakes.

1. In what state is Detroit? Locate it on the map. What about its location made Pontiac wish to seize it?

2. Give the reasons for Pontiac's making war on the English. 3. What was his plan for seizing Detroit? How was it defeated? 4. Did Catherine do right in betraying the plans of her own people? Give reasons for your answer.

5. How large is Detroit now? How many other cities in the United States are larger? What is its leading industry?

6. If your own community has had an exciting experience in times of war, find out about it and report it to the class. Your teacher will suggest local people (such as the librarian, town or city officials) who can give you help.

PIONEER HOUSES

BY FRANK G. CARPENTER

UR homes are far different from those of our fore

fathers. When the Puritans and Cavaliers crossed the Atlantic to settle in the New World they had to cut their dwellings out of the woods. There were no sawmills and planing mills where shingles and boards, window sashes s and doors, and all sorts of wood ready-made to be fitted into a house, could be bought. There were no hardware establishments with great stores of nails, screws, hinges, and locks of all kinds. There were no brickyards or stone quarries or places where one could buy lime, cement, and ro plaster. The whole country was a wilderness and the most of it covered with trees which had to be chopped down.

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Suppose you were one of a family just landed on the shore of a land of this kind, with little more than an ax, a saw, and a hatchet or so; how would you begin to build 15 a home? You would first look about for some kind of shelter in which to stay while you could cut down the great trees and erect a log cabin.

That is what many of our great-great-grandparents did. They huddled together in caves when they could find them; 20 or dug holes into the sides of the hills and made shelters there by driving in poles which they supported by crotched sticks sunken into the ground at right angles. Upon these as a framework branches and leaves and grass were fastened, making rude walls and a roof, which, added to the earth 25 at the back and sides, formed their first homes.

In many parts of the colonies, and especially in the south, they built wigwams like those of the Indians, using mats, grass, or deerskins to cover the poles. Farther north they had wigwams and houses of bark. Within six 5 years after the Pilgrims first landed on Plymouth Rock and began to erect their log huts, there were only thirty dwellings on the island of Manhattan, and all but one were of bark. These rude little shelters were situated on the lower part of the island. They stood on the very places Io which are now covered with steel-and-brick office buildings, some of which are thirty, forty, and even more than fifty stories high.

It was not long after the settlers came before they had their log houses under roof. Every man was his own carIs penter, builder, and furniture maker. He chopped down the trees and hewed the logs into lumber. He then called upon his neighbors to aid him in putting the structure together and in raising the framework for the roof. In some places the walls were made of logs from fourteen to eighteen feet long, set perpendicularly side by side in deep trenches running around a square which formed the floor of the dwelling. The earth was then pounded down and the logs fastened together with wooden pins and crosspieces, after which the spaces between were chinked with mud. 25 Then a roof of hewn boards or bark shingles, or of a framework covered with thatch, was put on and the main part of the house was complete.

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In such cabins the logs were so cut as to leave openings for the windows and doors. The windows had wooden 30 shutters with hinges of withes or leather and sometimes a sash with panes of greased paper. The doors were of boards hewn from logs, fastened to crosspieces with wrought-iron

nails or wooden pins. They were hung upon hinges of vines or of leather. Sometimes bark doors and shutters were used.

The furniture consisted of a rude bed, a table, and some stools or chairs of rough wood, cut out of the trees. The s huts made of fourteen-foot logs had but one story. Those of logs eighteen feet long had usually a loft in addition.

Many of the cabins of that time were of logs notched near the ends and laid horizontally one upon the others, crossing at right angles and forming an oblong or square 10 room. Such logs were added, layer by layer, until the house was of the desired height, when the framework for the roof was raised into place. This was then covered with thatch, clapboards, or split shingles. Some of the logs were cut shorter to fit into the places where the open- 15 ings for such windows and doors as have been already described were to be.

The house was then made tight by chinking, or filling in, all the holes and spaces between the logs with mud and broken stones and by plastering the spaces with clay. 20 The floor was the earth, well pounded down; or in the better cabins it was of split or hewed logs, called “puncheons." A large fireplace was built in one end of the cabin and this formed a part of the great chimney of earth and sticks, or of earth and stones, laid up on the outside 25 of the wall.

Such houses seem rude to us now, but they were the first permanent dwellings of thousands in colonial times. They were the homes of the earliest settlers, and as the pioneers chopped their way through the woods towards the 30 Mississippi Valley, each settler erected his log home and cutting down the forest about it broke the land for his