Do you think those were "good old times"? I imagine some of you will fancy they were "bad old times." But they were not nearly so bad as you may think. For you must bear in mind that the people knew nothing of many of the things we enjoy. They were used to hard work and plain food and coarse furniture and rough clothes and cold rooms, and were more hardy and could stand more than people who sleep in furnace-heated rooms and have their tables heaped with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats. But there was one thing that could not have been pleasant, and that was, their being afraid all the time of the Indians, and having to carry muskets with them even when they went to church. All around them were the forests in which the wild red men roamed, and their cruel yell might be heard at any time, or a sharp arrow might whiz out from the thick leaves. The farm-houses were built like forts, and in all the villages were strong buildings called blockhouses, to which everybody could run in times of danger. In these the second story spread out over the first, and there were holes in the floor through which the men could fire down on the Indians below. But it makes us tremble to think that, at any time, the traveler or farmer might be shot down by a lurking savage, or might be seized and burned alive. We can hardly wonder that the people grew to hate the Indians and to kill them or drive them away. There was much game in the woods and the rivers were full of fish, so that many of the people spent their time in hunting and fishing. They got to be as expert in this as the Indians themselves, and some of them could follow a trail as well as the most sharp-sighted of the red men. Some of you may have read Fenimore Cooper's novels of Indian life, and know what a wonderful hunter and Indian trailer old Natty Bumppo was. But we do not need to go to novels to read about great hunters, for the life of Daniel Boone is as full of adventure as that of any of the heroes of Indian life. Daniel Boone was the most famous hunter this country has ever known. He lived much later than the early times I am talking about, but the country he lived in was as wild as that found by the first settlers of the country. When he was only a little boy he went into the deep woods and lived there by himself for several days, shooting game and making a fire to cook it by. He made himself a little hut of boughs and sods, and lived in it like an Indian, and there his father and friends found him when they came seeking him in the woods. Years afterwards he crossed the high mountains of North Carolina and went into the great forest of Kentucky, where only Indians and wild animals lived. For a long time he stayed there by himself, with the Indians hunting and trying to kill him. But he was too wide awake for the smartest of them all.