Our beds were laid in the bottom of the wagon and covered with the bedclothes to save them from being badly soiled, as would be likely if we slept upon them at night, and cooked, ate, and did the housework on them during the daytime.
We did not try to carry many dishes, because there were so many chances they would be broken, but nearly everything of the kind we used was of metal, such as tin or iron.
Underneath the cart were hung buckets, the churn, lanterns, and such a collection of articles that I could not but fancy people might believe we were peddlers carrying so large an assortment of goods that they had overrun the wagon body.
What puzzled me before we started on the journey was how we could persuade the cows to travel as we would have them; but I soon came to understand that it was a simple matter.
LEAVING ASHLEY
You must know that father was not the only man in Ashley that intended to build up a new home in California. More than half of the people were making preparations for the journey, and when we finally set off the procession was very imposing, with more than fifty wagons, not one of them drawn by less than three yoke of oxen or four pairs of mules; there were cows almost without number and a flock of thirty or forty sheep.
I said to myself then, that we need have no fear the savages would try to make trouble for us, because when they saw so many people, the poor, ignorant things would believe everybody on the banks of the Mississippi was heading for California, and it would be a very brave Indian who dared be other than polite to such a large company.
Even though you had never before heard of Pike County, it would have been most interesting to see the people of Ashley on the morning we set off. As Ellen Morgan, a particular friend of mine who was going to California also, said to me just before we drove away, "It is much as if all the folks in the world had come to see us leave town."
The streets were actually thronged, as I have heard it said the streets of a large city oftentimes are, and what with the shouts of the men, the screams of the children, and the lowing of the cattle, it was quite as much as I could do to make myself heard when I tried to tell Ellen that at the last minute mother had given permission for her to ride in our wagon.