In the selections reprinted in this part of _The Jeffersonians_ we have chosen four pieces that show various aspects of life in the Mississippi Valley. Here you will find examples of farm life, religion, and politics in the new states west of the mountains.
William Cooper Howells, the author of the next selection, was the father of a famous magazine editor and novelist, William Dean Howells. The elder Howells was taken to Ohio from England as a child and grew up on a farm while Ohio was a new state. His memories come from _Recollections of Life in Ohio from 1813 to 1840_.
One of the gatherings for joint work, which has totally disappeared from the agriculture of modern times, and one that was always a jolly kind of affair, was the cornhusking. It was a sort of harvest home in its department, and it was the more jolly because it was a gathering with very little respect to persons, and embraced in the invitation men and big boys, with the understanding that no one would be unwelcome. There was always a good supper served at the husking, and as certainly a good appetite to eat it with. It came at a plentiful season, when the turkeys and chickens were fat, and a fat pig was at hand, to be flanked on the table with good bread in various forms, turnips and potatoes from the autumn stores, apple and pumpkin pies, good coffee and the like. And the cooking was always well done, and all in such bountiful abundance that no one feared to eat, while many a poor fellow was certain of a square meal by being present at a husking. You were sure to see the laboring men of the vicinity out, and the wives of a goodly number of farm hands would be on hand to help in the cooking and serving at the table. The cornhusking has been discontinued because the farmers found out that it was less trouble to husk it in the field, direct from the stalk, than to gather in the husk and go over it again. But in that day they did not know that much and therefore took the original method of managing their corn crop, which was this: as soon as the grain began to harden they would cut the stalks off just above the ears and save these tops for fodder, and if they had time they stripped all the blades off the stalks below the ears, which made very nice though costly feed. Then, as barn room was not usually over plenty, they made a kind of frame of poles, as for a tent, and thatched it, sides and top, with the corn tops placed with the tassel downward, so as to shed the rain and snow. This was called the fodder-house and was built in the barnyard. Inside they would store the blades in bundles, the husks, and the pumpkins that were saved for use in the winter. The fodder-house was commonly made ten feet high and as long as was necessary, and it was used up through the winter by feeding the fodder to the cattle, beginning at the back, which would be temporarily closed by a few bundles of the tops. It would thus serve as a protection for what might be stored in it till all was used up. The fodder-house was, of all things, a favorite place for the children to hide in and play. When the season for gathering the corn came the farmers went through the fields and pulled off the ears and husks together, throwing them upon the ground in heaps, whence they were hauled into the barnyard and there piled up in a neat pile of convenient length, according to the crop, and say four or five feet high, rising to a sharp peak from a base of about six feet. Care was taken to make this pile of equal width and height from end to end, so that it would be easily and fairly divided in the middle by a rail laid upon it.