Corduroying the swamps formed the principal part of road-making among
the early settlers for many a day. At these annual road-making
gatherings opportunity was offered for discussion of the news,
politics, religion, war, the state of the crops, comparative
advantages of the new country over the old, and so forth, but the
principal opportunities, recurring every week, were the hours after
Sunday church services. I remember hearing long talks on the wonderful
beauty of the Indian corn; the wonderful melons, so wondrous fine for
"sloken a body on hot days"; their contempt for tomatoes, so fine to
look at with their sunny colors and so disappointing in taste; the
miserable cucumbers the "Yankee bodies" ate, though tasteless as
rushes; the character of the Yankees, etcetera. Then there were long
discussions about the Russian war, news of which was eagerly gleaned
from Greeley's "New York Tribune"; the great battles of the Alma, the
charges at Balaklava and Inkerman; the siege of Sebastopol; the
military genius of Todleben; the character of Nicholas; the character
of the Russian soldier, his stubborn bravery, who for the first time
in history withstood the British bayonet charges; the probable outcome
of the terrible war; the fate of Turkey, and so forth.
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