When we reached the shore, we were again seated in our coach, and switched on to Nebraska's terra firma.
Mr. J. R. Buchanan refers to Beaver county, Pa., as his birth-place, but had left his native state when yet a boy, and had wandered westward, and now resides in Missouri Valley, the general passenger agent of the S.C. & P.R.R. Co., which office we afterward learned he fills with true dignity and a generosity becoming the company he represents. He spoke with tenderness of the good old land of Pennsylvania, and displayed a hearty interest in the people who had just come from there. Indeed, there was much kindness expressed for "the colony going to the Niobrara country" all the way along, and many were the compliments paid. Do not blame us for self praise; we flattered ourselves that we did well sustain the old family honors of "The Keystone." While nearing Blair, the singers serenaded Mr. B. with "Ten thousand miles away" and other appropriate songs in which he joined, and then with an earnest "God bless you," left us. Reader, I will have to travel this road again, and then I will tell you all about it. I have no time or chance to write now. The day is calm and bright, and more like a real picnic or pleasure excursion than a day of travel to a land of "doubt." When the train stopped any time at a station, a number of us would get off, walk about, and gather half-unfolded cottonwood and box elder leaves until "all aboard" was sung out, and we were on with the rest—to go calling and visit with our neighbors until the next station was reached. This relieved the monotony of the constant going, and rested us from the jog and jolt of the cars.
One of the doings of the day was the gathering of a button string; mementos from the colony folks, that I might remember each one. I felt I was going only to soon leave them—they to scatter over the plains, and I to return perhaps never to again see Nebraska, and 'twas with a mingling of sadness with all the fun of the gathering, that I received a button from this one, a key or coin from that one, and scribbled down the name in my memorandum. I knew they would speak to me long after we had separated, and tell how the givers looked, or what they said as they gave them to me, thinking, no doubt, it was only child's play.
Mr. Gibson continued with the party, just as obliging as ever, until we reached Fremont, where he turned back to look after more travelers from the East, as he is eastern passenger agent of the S.C. & P.R.R. He received the thanks of all for the kindness and patience he displayed in piloting a party of impatient emigrants through a three days' journey.
Mr. Familton, who joined us at Denison, Iowa, and was going to help the claim hunters, took pity on our empty looking lunch baskets, and kindly had a number to take dinner at West Point and supper at Neligh with him. It was a real treat to eat a meal from a well spread table again.
I must say I was disappointed; I had fancied the prairies would already be in waving grass; instead, they were yet brown and sere with the dead grass of last year excepting where they had been run over with fire, and that I could scarcely tell from plowed ground—it has the same rough appearance, and the soil is so very dark. Yet, the farther west we went, the better all seemed to be pleased. Thus, with song and sight-seeing, the day passed. "Old Sol" hid his smiling face from us when near Clearwater, and what a grand "good night" he bade us! and what beauty he spread out before us, going down like a great ball of fire, setting ablaze every little sheet of water, and windows in houses far away! Indeed, the windows were all we could see of the houses.
We were all wide awake to the lovely scene so new to us. Lizzie saw this, Laura that, and Al, if told to look at the lovely sunset (but who had a better taste for wild game) would invariably exclaim: Oh! the prairie chickens! the ducks! the ducks! and wish for his gun to try his luck. Thus nothing was lost, but everything enjoyed, until we stopped at a small town where a couple of intoxicated men, claiming to be cow-boys, came swaggering through our car to see the party of "tenderfeet," as new arrivals from the East are termed by some, but were soon shown that their company was not congenial and led out of the car. My only defense is in flight and in getting out of the way; so I hid between the seats and held my ears. Oh! dear! why did I come west? I thought; but the train whistle blew and away we flew leaving our tormenters behind, and no one hurt. Thus ended our first battle with the much dreaded cow-boys; yet we were assured by others that they were not cow-boys, as they, with all their wildness, would not be guilty of such an act.
About 11 o'clock, Thursday night, we arrived at our last station, Stuart, Holt county. Our coach was switched on a side-track, doors locked, blinds pulled down, and there we slept until the dawning of our first morning in Nebraska. The station agent had been apprised of our coming, and had made comfortable the depot and a baggage car with a good fire; that the men who had been traveling in other coaches and could not find room in the two hotels of the town, could find a comfortable resting place for the night.
We felt refreshed after a night of quiet rest, and the salubrious air of the morning put us in fine spirits, and we flocked from the car like birds out of a cage, and could have flown like freed birds to their nests, some forty miles farther north-west, where the colonists expected to find their nests of homes.
But instead, we quietly walked around the depot, and listened to a lark that sang us a sweet serenade from amid the grass close by; but we had to chase it up with a "shoo," and a flying clod before we could see the songster. Then by way of initiation into the life of the "wild west," a mark was pinned to a telegraph pole; and would you believe it, reader, the spirit of the country had so taken hold of us already that we took right hold of a big revolver, took aim, pulled the trigger, and after the smoke had cleared away, looked—and—well—we missed paper and pole, but hit the prairie beyond; where most of the shots were sown that followed.