The women wore a short gown and petticoat of plain materials and a calico cap. Their hair was combed back from the forehead and made into a plain knot at the nape of the neck. The women and girls worked in the fields and wore no shoes except in the winter. They worked from dawn 'til dark, for they milked, churned, made cheese, washed and ironed for the family, cooked, spun and wove, knitted stockings and quilted in their leisure moments. Kercheval tells us how they made apple butter and sourkrout. Of the latter he wrote: "Sourkrout is made of the best of cabbage. A box about three feet in length and six or seven inches wide, with a sharp blade fixed across the bottom, something on the principle of the jack plane, is used for cutting the cabbage. The head being separated from the stalk and stripped of its outer leaves is placed in this box and run back and forth. The cabbage thus cut up is placed in a barrel, a little salt is sprinkled on from time to time, then pressed down very closely and covered at the open head. In the course of three or four weeks it acquires a sourish taste and to persons accustomed to the use of it is a very agreeable food. It is said the use of it within the last few years on boards of ship has proved it to be the best preventive known for scurvy. The use of it is becoming pretty general among all classes in the Valley." Kercheval even tells us what the pioneers did for medicine. When he was a boy he saw a man brought into the fort on horseback, who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. One of the men dragged the snake, fastened to a forked stick, behind the victim. The body of the snake was cut into small pieces, split and laid on the wounded flesh. This, they claimed, would draw out the poison of the bite. When this was done, the snake was burned to ashes. During this process, others gathered chestnut leaves and boiled them in a pot. Wide pieces of chestnut bark were applied to the man's wound and the chestnut-leaf mixture poured over some of the boiled leaves which had been made into a poultice. This was kept up during the first day and if not improved, the treatment was continued the next. Others suggested using boiled plantain, cooked in milk, which was given to the patient. Walnut fern was another remedy for snakebite. The braver patient submitted to cupping, sucking the wound or having someone cut out the flesh around the bite. Gunshot wounds were treated with slippery-elm bark, flax seed poultices or by scraping the wound itself and cauterizing it. The people suffering from rheumatism were rubbed with oil made from rattlesnakes, bears, geese, wolves or any wild animal. This was put on a flannel rag and bound to the parts affected.