as anybody waked up, the man would whisper, "Indians!" Joseph's father
would then take down his gun. The children would be dressed in the
dark as quickly as possible. Such things as would be needed in the
fort were then picked up. Not a word was spoken, nor was any candle
lighted. Even the little children learned to be perfectly silent, and
the dogs were taught not to bark. When all was ready, the family would
hurry away along the foot path to the fort. All the other families in
the settlement would be called in the same way.

Every fall these settlers sent pack horses over the mountains. The
horses were loaded with the skins of animals. When they came back,
they carried salt, which was the one thing that could not be made in
the settlement. But the men never thought it worth while to bring home
with them tea and coffee or other unnecessary things.

When Joseph was about seven years of age, he was sent over the
mountains to school. The little boy was very much puzzled when he
first saw a house that was plastered inside. He had never in his life
seen anything but a cabin built of logs. He could not understand how a
plastered house was built. It seemed to him like something that had
grown that way.

When supper time came in this plastered house, he saw a teacup and
saucer for the first time in his life. The people in his neighborhood
used wooden bowls to drink out of. But here he saw what seemed to him
to be a little cup standing in a bigger one. He had never heard of
coffee. He only knew that the brownish-looking stuff in his cup was
not milk, or hominy, or soup. What to do with the little cups, or how
to make use of the spoon that was in them, he could not tell, so he
watched the big folks handle their cups and spoons. He drank the