In the clearings the dwellings of these men were the "half-faced camp" open upon one side to the weather, or the doorless, floorless, and windowless cabin which, with prosperity, might be made luxurious by greased paper in the windows, and "puncheon" floors. The furniture was in keeping with this exterior. At a corner the bed was constructed by driving into the ground crotched sticks, whence poles extended to the crevices of the walls; upon these poles were laid boards, and upon these boards were tossed leaves and skins and such other alleviating material as could be found. Three-legged stools and a table were hewed from the felled trees with an axe, which was often the settler's only and invaluable tool, and which he would travel long miles to sharpen. If a woman wanted a looking-glass, she scoured a tin pan, but the temptation to inspect one's self must have been feeble. A very few kitchen utensils completed the outfit. Troughs served for washtubs, when wash tubs were used; and wooden ploughs broke up the virgin soil. The whole was little, if at all, more comfortable than the red man's wigwam. In "towns," so called, there was of course somewhat more of civilization than in the clearings. But one must not be misled by a name; a "town" might signify only a score of houses, and the length of its life was wholly problematical; a few days sufficed to build the wooden huts, which in a few years might be abandoned. In the early days there was almost no money among the people; sometimes barter was resorted to; one lover paid for his marriage license with maple sugar, another with wolf-scalps. More often a promise sufficed; credit was a system well understood, and promissory notes constituted an unquestioned and popular method of payment that would have made a millennium for Mr. Micawber. But however scant might be cash and houses, each town had its grocery, and these famous "stores" were by far the chief influence in shaping the ideas of the Westerner. There all congregated, the idlers all day long, the busy men in the evening; and there, stimulated by the whiskey of the proprietor, they gossiped about everybody's affairs, talked about business and the prospects of the neighborhood, and argued about the politics of the county, the State, and even of the nation. Jokes and stories, often most uncouth and gross, whiled away the time. It was in these groceries, and in the rough crucible of such talk, wherein grotesque imagery and extravagant phrases were used to ridicule pretension and to bring every man to his place, sometimes also to escape taking a hard fact too hardly, that what we now call "American humor," with its peculiar native flavor, was born. To this it is matter of tradition that Lincoln contributed liberally. He liked neighborly chat and discussion; and his fondness for political debate, and his gifts in tale and jest, made him the most popular man in every "store" that he entered.