Dennis Beecher$ age 10, of Tallahassee, Fla., for his question:

What was a half faced camp like?

Andy loves to read tales of the  pioneers who first settled our country. He loves to travel the thousands of miles of rich cultivated farmland and remember that not so long ago all this land was an untamed wilderness. Here and there is an historical marker. Past this place came the blazers of the Oregon Trail. Here a group of early surveyors camped for a night. Sometimes he finds an old log cabin, carefully preserved in a modern city where the people remember the toil and hardships of their brave ancestors with pride.

In the tales of the pioneers of the Great Plains, we sometimes read that such and such a family set themselves up a half faced camp. We may even read that the sixteenth president of the United States lived a part of his early life in a half faced camp. Log cabins wagons, early plows and tools are preserved in plenty, But so far, Andy has not discovered one of these early half faced camps. Perhaps this is because these shelters were only used for a short time.

Lets put our own minds back and arrive with a pioneer family at a spot in the wilderness. Later this spot is to become part of the rich farmlands of Indiana. Right now, it is a dense forest of lush vegetation and giant trees. The family, in the covered Conestoga, has come all the way from the eastern states. Provisions are low, It is early spring    time for a. farmer to think of planting.

But before planting can begin there is work, much work, to be done. The land, maybe only a little patch of it, must be cleared and plowed. But there is the family to think of. It needs shelter a home after all the months of life in the rumbling wagon.

Building a log cabin takes time, too much time. So the pioneers invented a simple shelter that could be built in a few hours. The half faced camp. They found a sizable fallen tree, or felled ones taking care that its giant trunk pointed from east to west. They then felled two sturdy smaller trees, trimming the branches to form a fork. These they set into the ground, about fourteen feet apart on the southern side of the fallen tree.

Another tree trunk was placed firmly between the two forks on top of the posts. More logs joined the cross beam to the fallen tree to form a roof. The roof was then covered cosily with brush wood and more logs were rolled up to fill in the two ends of the shelter. The south side of this half faced camp was left open.

The family slept inside with their heads towards the low end of the shelter. Often a fire at the higher, open end of the camp kept them warm and served as a kitchen range. It was in one of these temporary shelters that Abraham Lincoln spent some of his life.