We needed that; I knew that we should have to go hungry without the grist.

It would get wet from above and below if I tried to carry it on the back of a horse.

I warmed myself by the fire and hitched my team near it so as to thaw the frost out of their forelocks and eyebrows.

I felt in my coat pockets and found a handful of nails--everybody carried nails in one pocket those days--and I remember that my uncle's pockets were a museum of bolts and nuts and screws and washers.
The idea occurred to me that I would make a kind of sled which was called a jumper.
So I got my ax out of the wagon and soon found a couple of small trees with the right crook for the forward end of a runner and cut them and hewed their bottoms as smoothly as I could.

Then I made notches in them near the top of their crooks and fitted a stout stick into the notches and secured it with nails driven by the ax-head.