They were married, and instantly began to make their preparations for departure. Emily took none of her nicer articles of housekeeping, nothing in the shape of furniture but a small looking-glass, saying that there was no room or use for them in the camp; and as they were not going west of the mountains, and James had a birch, and could come down the river, they could get them when they had more room and it was needful; that what she wanted most of all were her tools and necessary things. And she carried not only the fixtures for a loom, but the loom itself, wool, flax, dye-stuffs, wheels to spin flax and wool, cards, warping-bars, a quill-wheel, reels, a flax-comb, a Dutch-oven, plenty of pots and kettles, but one large pewter platter, three pewter plates and two earthen mugs; three milkpans, and a churn and milk-pail and skimmer, and two good beds; not a chair, nor even a chest of drawers. But as the wagon was of great size, and the team strong, they were able to carry an abundance of the implements that would enable them, as they were possessed of both brains and hands, to manufacture these other conveniences and comforts, and be really independent. James did much after the same fashion, taking a good stock of carpenter’s tools, some cooper’s tools, a brick trowel, horse-nails, and a shoeing-hammer, harrow-teeth, the irons and mould-board of a plough, and the iron fixtures, and the tools pertaining to a lathe.
“Mother,” said Bertie, “they are just alike; isn’t it queer? They want to take the same things; it’s all tools with ‘em both. James hasn’t taken hardly anything but tools, except books.”
“That is because they are both gifted with common sense, and mean to be comfortable, and not to make a failure of it.”
James bought four oxen that measured six feet nine inches in girth. Mr. Conly gave his daughter a cow, and Mrs. Whitman gave James another, and Maria gave him six sheep. James had the cows and oxen shod, put the cows in a yoke, and fastened them behind the wagon.
When Mr. Whitman asked James why he preferred to move with oxen, when he was so fond of horses and was accustomed to handling them, he replied: “On the score of economy;” that he had bought a pair of oxen for what the harnesses of two horses would have cost him, and the four for what two good horses would have cost, and then had more strength; that there was not much difference in the rate of travel, on a long road, between oxen and horses when they were both heavily loaded; and as he should not at first have a great deal of hay and grain, oxen could be kept on browse much better than horses; that he could make yoke and bows and all the gear for oxen himself, and if he wished could, at any time, sell the oxen for beef and buy horses when better able to keep the latter; and, finally, if like to starve, could eat them, and thus had one winter’s provision in possession.
Bertie insisted upon going with them, and driving the team as far as Shamokin, while James rode on old Frank with his wife behind him on a pillion.
When they parted, Bertie said,—
“You needn’t be surprised to see me up there on a piece of land. I don’t mean to stay at home; and if you’ll let me stay with you, I may buy a piece of land, and come up there and work on it.”
“Then you had better keep right on with us,” said Emily, “for I have no doubt you have some one in view for a future housekeeper.”
“No, truly, the fact is, I like all the girls so well that I can’t like any one to pick her out. I romp with ‘em, quarrel with ‘em, and then make up, and they are all just like sisters. Expect I must go among strangers to get one; but if I thought I’d got to go through such a tribulation, and suffer so much as James did in getting you, I never would undertake it.”