They also set to work as soon as the frost was out of the ground, to prepare their little field for the Indian corn.

This kept them quite busy.

Catharine attended to the house, and Indiana went out fishing and hunting, bringing in plenty of small game and fish every day.

After they had piled and burned up the loose boughs and trunks that encumbered the space which they had marked out, they proceeded to enclose it with a "brush fence", which was done by felling the trees that stood in the line of the field, and letting them fall so as to form the bottom log of the fence, which they then made of sufficient height by piling up arms of trees and brush-wood.

Perhaps in this matter they were too particular, as there was no fear of "breachy cattle," or any cattle, intruding on the crop; but Hector maintained that deer and bears were as much to be guarded against as oxen and cows.
The little enclosure was made secure from any such depredators, and was as clean as hands could make it, and the two cousins were sitting on a log, contentedly surveying their work, and talking of the time when the grain was to be put in.