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Show Page 6 in Uncle Sam's cabin. Her parents soon moved the family out of this cabin into their own home, a new, ten-room log "cabin" nearby. The house was long, low and rambling with a rock fireplace in every room. It stood near a crystal-clear spring at the bottom of a mountain and looked out over sloping meadows. Vermillion Creek meandered past not far to the south. To furnish the house, a large cook stove, pots and kettles, feather beds and spool beds were shipped from Virginia by Mrs. Bassett's grandfather, then hauled to Brown's Park by wagon from Rock Springs, Wyoming, eighty miles away. But after making a hazardous trip to bring home an organ, Mr. Bassett declared he would haul in no more bulky "boughten" home furnishings. Since the new home was still quite empty of furniture, the Bassetts made clever use of the natural materials around them. Frames for tables and chairs were made from birch trees. Rawhide strips were used to make the seats and backs, milkweed floss to stuff the buckskin cushions. Mrs. Bassett traded ten pounds of sugar to a squaw for a bale of fringed buckskins which she made into curtains. The curtain rods were birch and the curtains were hung from them with rings made from the leg bones of deer. It was a cozy, comfortable home and soon became the unofficial gathering place for travellers and neighbors alike. Here they could talk, choose a book from the |