It was built entirely with his own
hands, of cedar rails and white-pine planks, which he had cut and sawed
from trees that his own hands had felled. A queer little cabin, some
nine feet in length by five or six in breadth, standing all alone in the
forest, with not a neighbor within a distance of at least four miles!
Dismounting, we fastened our horses to a couple of saplings, and I was
introduced to the interior of Cranberry Lodge, which was tenanted only
by the "hired man," who, in the absence of Mr. B., reigned supreme in
the clearing. The dwelling I found no less primitive in internal than
in its external appearance. Three persons, moderately doubled up and
squeezed, could find room in the interior, which was furnished with a
bench for the safe-keeping of sundry pots, pans, and other culinary
necessaries, and with a shelf on which some blankets were laid,
constituting my companion's bedstead and bed, when he slept in Cranberry
Lodge. Beneath the "bunk" a small hole scooped in the sand stood in
lieu of a cellar, and contained a stock of provisions of Mr. B.'s own
cooking.
Such a backwoodish dwelling as Cranberry Lodge, existing in the year
1858, within seventy miles of New York, requires some explanation.
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