The sun and wind soon tans their faces a reddish brown, but they look healthy, happy, and contented. Thus you see, there is a needed class of people in the West that think no hardship to pick up and thus go whither their fancy may lead them, and to this class in a great measure we owe the opening up of the western country.
Saturday morning. Cloudy and threatened more storm, but cleared off nicely after a few stray flakes of "beautiful snow" had fallen. All getting ready to make a start to the colony location. Hearing that Mr. Lewis, one of the colonists, would start with the rest with a team of oxen, I engaged a passage in his wagon. I wanted to go West as the majority go, and enter into the full meaning and spirit of it all; so, much to the surprise of many, I donned a broad brimmed sombrero, and left Stuart about one o'clock, perched on the spring seat of a double bed wagon, in company with Mrs. Gilman, who came from Bradford last week. Mr. Lewis finds it easier driving, to walk, and is accompanied by Mr. Boggs, who I judge has passed his three score years.
Thinking I might get hungry on the way or have to tent out, Mrs. S. gave me a loaf of bread, some butter, meat, and stewed currants to bring along; but the first thing done was the spilling of the juice off the currants.
Come, reader, go with me on my first ride over the plains of Nebraska behind oxen; of course they do not prance, pace, gallop, or trot; I think they simply walk, but time will tell how fast they can jog along. Sorry we cannot give you the shelter of a "prairie schooner," for the wind does not forget to blow, and it is a little cool.
Mr. L. has already named his matched brindles, "Brock and Broady," and as they were taken from the herd but yesterday, and have not been under the yoke long, they are rather untutored; but Mr. L. is tutoring them with a long lash whip, and I think he will have them pretty well trained by the time we reach the end of our journey.
"Whoa, there Broady! get up! it's after one and dear only knows how far we have got to go. Don't turn 'round so, you'll upset the wagon!" We are going directly north-west. This, that looks like great furrows running parallel with the road, I am told, is the old wagon train road running from Omaha to the Black Hills. It runs directly through Stuart, but I took it to be a narrow potato patch all dug up in deep rows. I see when they get tired of the old ruts, they just drive along side and make a new road which soon wears as deep as the old. No road taxes to pay or work done on the roads here, and never a stone to cause a jolt. The jolting done is caused in going from one rut to another.
Here we are four miles from Stuart, and wading through a two-mile stretch of wet ground, all standing in water. No signs of habitation, not even Stuart to be seen from this point.
Mr. Lewis wishes for a longer whip-stock or handle; I'll keep a look out and perhaps I will find one.
Now about ten miles on our way and Stuart in plain view. There must be a raise and fall in the ground that I cannot notice in going over it. Land is better here Mr. B. says, and all homesteaded. Away to our right are a few little houses, sod and frame. While to the left, 16 miles away, are to be seen the sand-hills, looking like great dark waves.
The walking is so good here that I think I will relieve the—oxen of about 97 pounds. You see I have been gaining in my avoirdupois. I enjoy walking over this old road, gathering dried grasses and pebbles, wishing they could speak and tell of the long emigrant trains that had tented at night by the wayside; of travelers going west to find new homes away out on the wild plains; of the heavy freight trains carrying supplies to the Indian agencies and the Black Hills; of the buffalo stampede and Indian "whoop" these prairies had echoed with, but which gave way to civilization only a few years ago, and now under its protection, we go over the same road in perfect safety, where robbery and massacres have no doubt been committed. Oh! the change of time!