Truly we had reason to be glad, for there was not another of the villages of the Lake-Dwellers in all the mountain and valley region as growing and prosperous as ours, nor were there any of the land tribes whom we greatly feared. There had been great trouble and bloodshed long ago, but that was past and known of only in the stories of our fathers. Our ways were now those of the peaceful, though, sometimes, there were tragedies, yet, as the years passed, it seemed as if there could surely be no tribe so safe as we who dwelt in the huts of the lake village. The time when, as I have said, there was no peace at all, was when we dwelt upon the land which came sloping from the west to the water’s side and when very near to us to the north and east were wild tribes who made repeated forays and who slew and burned. We had remained but a small and timorous force when some one among us--none now could tell whom, but he must have been most wise and crafty--thought of the plan of making our dwellings on piles above the water, that we might be able to defend ourselves from all invaders, be they any of the wicked foraying tribes, or the marauding beasts, which at that time were many and fierce and dangerous. But this had been long ago, and the story of it was already becoming dim. To make our houses we, first, from our boats, drove sharpened piles of oak, beech, fir or ash, or sometimes yew, deep into the soft bottom of the lake, not very far from shore, yet far enough for safety’s sake; though sometimes nearer shore, so near that, when need came, a platform could be laid from it to the land, there was built a greater house than those we lived in, into which we could drive our animals when any danger threatened them. Our living places we reached mostly by boat, though in times of certain peace we had usually laid from the great platform a narrow path of split planks on a row of piles upon which we might pass more readily; these planks, like those of the slope from the ground to the stables, could easily be taken away. Upon the great platform farthest out in the lake our homes were built, very much alike. There were four upright standards connected by timbers wooden-pinned at the top, making the frame of a house a little longer than it was wide. Between these standards were the walls of interwoven willow plastered with a mortar of firmly adhesive mud. The roof was raised in the middle that the rain might run off more easily. In one end were a door and a window. At one end of the living-room was a big sandstone slab which was the fireplace, the smoke from which escaped through the door and window or through a hole in the roof; it did not annoy us, for all were accustomed to it from childhood, besides which we had learned to use only those woods for fire which burned most cleanly. In the middle of the floor of each house was a trap door, through which could be let down a small net for the fish which were so abundant in the lake and