No sooner had she begun her work than fully half the women of the company followed her example, and at the side or in the rear of nearly every wagon was a churn set out with either the girls or the boys working the dasher.
As Eben Jordan said when he offered to spell me at the churn, it looked as if we people, who had set out from Ashley to find a new home in the land of California, had decided to abandon the idea and turn all our attention to making butter.
Next morning we were forced to continue the journey before having breakfast, for we were nearing the Kansas River, and would arrive there about noon if the march was begun as soon as daylight. Even then there would be hardly more than time before the sun set to get all our train over, for the stream was so deep that it could not be forded, and we must send the wagons across in boats.
A KANSAS FERRY
Although we were, as one might have supposed, in an uninhabited country, father told me that at this crossing of the Kansas River was a ferry owned by two half-breed Indians, who made a business of freighting heavy wagons across for a fee of one dollar each; but all the live stock would be forced to swim.
Now since none of the boats could carry more than one wagon at a time, you may readily understand how many hours would be needed in order to get all our train from one side of the river to the other, even though it was no more than two hundred yards from bank to bank. Therefore, as I have said, it was necessary we arrive at the ferry at the earliest possible moment, lest night overtake us while half the company yet remained on the eastern shore.
The ferryboats were nothing more than square, shallow boxes, which the Indians pushed across by poles, after the cargo of wagons had been put on board.
Of course the women and the girls had nothing to do with this ferrying, save to remain under the wagon coverings where they would be out of the way. I envied Eben Jordan, who could move about at will, for verily my heart was in my mouth, so to speak, during all the time we were working our slow way across the stream, fearing lest our boat should sink beneath us.