. The Big Sandy Valley. A history of the people and country from the earliest settlement to the present time. no flaps. Asole of elk hide is put on if one can get it, and we girlsare proud indeed when our shoepacks are thus stiffenedon the bottom. TANNING LEATHER Tanning leather, whether you do it in the white mansway or work it down by rubbing and smoking afterthe Indian fashion, is wearisome labor, yet Mrs. Booneis very clever at the business and keeps our family wellsupplied when the hunting is good. For a vat she uses such a trough as I have just spokenof, and we children are set at gather
. The Big Sandy Valley. A history of the people and country from the earliest settlement to the present time. no flaps. Asole of elk hide is put on if one can get it, and we girlsare proud indeed when our shoepacks are thus stiffenedon the bottom. TANNING LEATHER Tanning leather, whether you do it in the white mansway or work it down by rubbing and smoking afterthe Indian fashion, is wearisome labor, yet Mrs. Booneis very clever at the business and keeps our family wellsupplied when the hunting is good. For a vat she uses such a trough as I have just spokenof, and we children are set at gathering and dryingbark, after which we pound or scrape it into fine frag-ments such as can be soaked readily. She uses hard-wood ashes instead of lime for taking off the hair, andbears grease or fat becai^se of the lack of fish oil. One TANNING LEATHER 31 of the men curries it with any kind of knife that is athand, and we children make a blacking of-soot and hogslard, rubbing it in well with blocks of wood. When we were on the Yadkin, I saw shoes which hadbeen put together by a man whose trade it was to make. them. The leather was beautifully black and glossy,but mother doubted if it would wear as well as thatwhich we make with so much hard labor. Father and the boys came back with all the gamethey could stagger under, and went off again next day HANNAH OF KENTUCKY 32 HANNAH OF KENTUCKY with two of the horses to bring in the meat that hadbeen left hanging in the forest. Two bears, sevendeer, and six big turkeys, to say nothing of many squir-rels, made up such a store of food that it did not seempossible we could eat it all during the short time wemight stay there. Every one of us except Johnny Boone, the baby, setabout curing the meat, expecting to carry it with us intoKentucky. Yet the days went by, sometimes slowly,and sometimes, when we felt reasonably safe against theIndians, rapidly, until winter had come and gone, ourfathers all the while thinking that it would be dan-gerous
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