A _log house_, in western parlance, differs from a cabin in the logs being hewn on two sides to an equal thickness before raising,--in having a framed and shingled roof, a brick or stone chimney, windows, tight floors, and are frequently clapboarded on the outside and plastered within.
A log house thus finished, costs more than a framed one. Cabins are often the temporary dwellings of opulent and highly respectable families.
The axe, auger, froe, drawing knife, broad-axe, and crosscut saw are the only tools required in constructing these rude edifices;--sometimes the axe and auger only are employed. Not a nail or pane of glass is needed. Cabins are by no means as wretched for residences as their name imports.
They are often roomy, comfortable and neat. If one is not sufficient to accommodate the family, another is added, and another until sufficient room is obtained.
3. _Furniture and mode of living._--The genuine backwoodsman makes himself and family comfortable and contented where those, unaccustomed to his mode of life, would live in unavailing regret, or make a thousand awkward apologies on the visit of a neighbor or traveller. A table is made of a split slab and supported by four round legs. Clapboards supported by pins stuck in the logs answer for shelves for table furniture. The bedstead is often made in the corner of the room by sticks placed in the logs, supported at the outward corner by a post, on which clapboards are laid, the ends of which enter the wall between the logs, and which support the bedding. On the arrival of travellers or visiters, the bed clothing is shared with them, being spread on the puncheon floor that the feet may project towards the fire. Many a night has the writer passed in this manner, after a fatiguing day's ride, and reposed more comfortably than on a bed of down in a spacious mansion. All the family of both sexes, with all the strangers who arrive, often lodge in the same room. In that case the under garments are never taken off, and no consciousness of impropriety or indelicacy of feeling is manifested. A few pins stuck in the wall of the cabin display the dresses of the women and the hunting shirts of the men. Two small forks or bucks-horns fastened to a joist are indispensable articles for the support of the rifle. A loose floor of clapboards, and supported by round poles, is thrown over head for a loft which furnishes a place to throw any articles not immediately wanted, and is frequently used for a lodging place for the younger branches of the family. A ladder planted in the corner behind the door answers the purpose of stairs.