From one side of this trap, or turkey pen, was dug a ditch perhaps two feet deep, and the same in width, running straightway into the thicket where the turkeys were in the custom of roosting, for a distance of twenty feet or more. This ditch was carried underneath the side of the pen, where was an opening hardly more than large enough for one turkey to pass through. Corn was scattered along the whole length of the ditch, and thus was the trap set. The turkeys, on finding the trail of corn, would follow hurriedly along, like the gluttons they are, with the idea of coming upon a larger hoard, and thus pass through into the pen. Once inside they were trapped securely, for the wild turkey holds his head so high that he can never see the way out through a hole which is at a level with his feet. It was a most ingenious contrivance, and on the first morning after it had been set at night, we had fifty plump fellows securely caged, when it was only necessary to enter the trap by crawling through the top, and kill them at our leisure. It may be asked how we made shift to cook such a thing as a turkey, other than by boiling it in a kettle, and this can be told in very few words, for it was a simple matter after once you had become accustomed to it. A CRUDE KIND OF CHIMNEY First you must know, however, that when our houses of logs had been built, we had nothing with which to make a chimney such as one finds in London. We had no bricks, and although, mayhap, flat rocks might have been found enough for two or three, there was no mortar in the whole land of Virginia with which to fasten them together. Therefore it was we were forced to build a chimney of logs, laying it up on the outside much as we had the house, but plentifully besmearing it with mud on the inside, and chinking the crevices with moss and clay. When this had been done, a hole was cut for the smoke, directly through the side of the house. The danger of setting the building on fire was great; but we strove to guard against it so much as possible by plastering a layer of mud over the wood, and by keeping careful watch when we had a roaring fire. Oftentimes were we forced to stop in the task of cooking, take all the vessels from the coals, and throw water upon the blazing logs. The chimney was a rude affair, of course, and perhaps if we had had women among us, they would have claimed that no cooking could be done, when all the utensils were placed directly on the burning wood, or hung above it with chains fastened to the top of the fireplace; but when lads like Nathaniel and me, who had never had any experience in cooking with proper tools, set about the task, it did not seem difficult, for we were accustomed to nothing else. COOKING A TURKEY