10       The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mouintains



rated with ornamental trimming of scroll-saw work in wood,
oftentimes colored a light blue, along the edges of the gables, and
defining the line between the two stories. The regulation balcony
over the front door and extending to the roof has a balustrade of
the same woodwork in excellent, chaste design, sometimes painted
and sometimes in the natural color. These houses, both in their
architecture and style of ornamentation, recall the village dwellings
in Norway, though not so beautiful or so richly decorated. But
the usual home of the mountaineer is the one-room cabin. Near by
is the barn, a small square log structure, with the roof projecting
from 8 to Io feet, to afford shelter for the young cattle or serve as
a milking-shed. These vividly recall the mountain architecture of
some of the Alpine dwellings of Switzerland and Bavaria, especially
when, as in a few instances, the roofs are held down by weight-
rocks to economize hardware or protect them against the high winds.
Very few of them have hay-lofts above, for the reason that only a
few favored districts in these mountains produce hay.
  The furnishings of the cabins are reduced to the merest neces-
saries of life, though in the vicinity of the railroads or along the
main streams where the valley roads make transportation a simpler
problem, a few luxuries like an occasional piece of shop-made fur-
riiture and lamp-chimneys have crept in. One cabin which we
visited near the foot of Pine Mountain, though of the better sort,
mlay be taken as typical. Almost everything it contained was home-
made, and only one iron-bound bucket showed the use of hardware.
Roth rooms contained two double beds. These were made of plain
white wood, and were roped across from side through auger-holes
to support the mattresses. The lower one of these was stuffed
with corn-shucks, the upper one with feathers from the geese raised
by the housewife. The sheets, blankets, and counterpanes had all
been woven by her, as also the linsey-woolsey from which her own
and her children's clothes were made. Gourds, hung on the walls,
served as receptacles for salt, soda and other kitchen supplies. The
mcal-barrel was a section of log, hollowed out with great nicety till
the wood was not more than an inch thick. The flour-barrel was a
large firkin, the parts held in place by hoops, fastened by an arrow-
head at one end of the withe slipped into a slit in the other; the
churn was made in the same way, and in neither was there nail or
screw. The washtub was a trough hollowed out of a log. A large
basket was woven of hickory slips by the mountaineer himself, and
two smaller ones made of the cane of the broom corn and bound at