All Christian comfort is denied, Dog Days! The great bulk of 19th-century Arkansans had to be stoic since they could not afford to spend two months in the Adirondacks each summer. This was especially true of women. Wives cooked meals on open fireplaces, or after about 1890, on wood-burning cast iron stoves. Both women and men often worked long hours in the cotton or corn fields. Life was most uncomfortable for enslaved men and women, who often labored under both a hot sun and an armed overseer. Fortunately for farmers and laborers, many of the row crops had been hoed and "laid by" before the dog days, allowing a respite from the worst of farm work. It was at this time that many rural Arkansans attended religious camp meetings, often sleeping in open wagons and using the occasion for visiting and maybe courting.