Dave owned two dogs, a cow, two oxen, twelve pigs, some sheep, and some chickens. They used corn to make bread for themselves and to feed the cattle and the sheep wben the snow covered ground and the animals themselves could get no food._ The pigs roamed the woods, and got their own living by eating acorns and hickory,nuts, and by digging up roots with their stout noses. The ox pulled the wooden plow that was used in the cornfield. He also pulled the narrow wooden sled that served for a wagon on which the family hauled corn and wood. In the autumn, Dave and Alf drove the ox away down the valley path, many miles, until they finally came to the railroad.
Here they sold the ox to a cattle dealer. They could spare the ox, because his younger brother would be big enough to take his place at plowing the next spring.
5. Homemade clothes.— As they trudged back up the mountain path to their home, Dave and Alf car- .
ried many small things bought with the money received for the ox. But they did not have enough money to pay for warm woolen clothes for winter.
Dave's wife, Sallie, had to make these with the help of Mary the oldest daughter. When the women had done the cooking and cleaning and had worked the garden, they always had spinning to do. . After they had nlado.the wool of the sheepinto yarn on the spinning wheel, they knitted socks by hand. Sometimes they wove the yarn into warm cloth on the handloom. At other times they made caps of raccoon and squirrel skins, for they needed skin caps to keep all the Douglas heads warm in the frosty winter. The father made the shoes from a cowsldn, to secure which he had traded four lambs to one of his neighbors. Thus did these people provide themselves with food, fuel, clothes, tools, and transportation. In the whole year the only things this family had to sell were the ox and the skins of some skunks and foxes. They could not even sell
the wood on their lands, because they lived so far from a railroad that they could not have earned ten cents a day if they hauled wood down to the train. Since they had so little to sell, they could not buy much.
6. When every neighborhood supplied its own needs.---Some people in every continent are still living as the Douglas family lived. They can be found in out-of-the-way places even in Europe. Indeed, that is how most of the people in all the world have had to get along most of the time since men lived in caves. At one time nearly all the families in the United States supplied their own needs. Now most of us live differently, because every family has many helpers.
7. Who are our helpers?—Isn't it fair to say that the people who make things for us are our helpers? They help us by making things we use, and we help them by sending other things in return. The trade that now is possible by ship and train makes distant men our helpers. Let us see who are some of the helpers of the children who come to this school. What do the people in this neigh borhood eat for breakfast? Where is the food made? Let us see how many different states and countries and kinds of people are neighbors and helpers to us by helping with our food, our fuel, our clothes, and our houses. Write on the blackboard a list of the articles that we use, the states and countries from which they come, and the kinds of people that help by making them. Make another list which will show the things that are sent from the neighborhood of this school in return for the many things we receive here.
the raw materials from which your six needs are supplied. Arrange your list as follows: