She stopped, gasping and struggling for breath. Joshua Peniman lifted her and held a heart stimulant to her lips. After an interval, when they feared all was over, she again opened her eyes. Mother love was stronger than death. "Send—her—to me," she gasped—"I have not long—to—be—with—her."
They laid her back upon the bed, then sent the child to her.
For some moments they heard the low murmur of voices, the sobbing of the child. Then when there had been silence for some time Hannah Peniman quietly parted the curtains of the wagon and looked in.
The young mother lay white and still, her beautiful delicately carved face looking like sculptured marble in the dim grey light of morning, the child with her arms tight clasped about her neck, her cheek on the fast-chilling cheek of her dead mother, sobbing by her side.
Hannah Peniman took her in her arms and carried her out of the wagon. Apart from her own brood of little ones she sat down, the little girl still in her arms, and rocked and crooned to her, talking to her in gentle, soothing tones, telling her of the great happiness her young parents would feel in their reunion, in that place where there is no more parting, no more sickness or suffering or death.
When the sun had risen they buried the man and woman side by side in a grave dug in the virgin soil of the prairie. Over it the sun rose, shining down upon the two pitiful mounds of earth in the loneliness of the desert land, and bringing out upon the two wooden crosses at their head the inscription Joshua Peniman had painted upon them, "Lee and Marian Carroll. Died July 20th, 1856. Buried by Joshua Peniman, emigrant, on way to Nebraska."
Below in smaller letters he had printed the cause of the death. That was all that he knew about them.
He had drawn the arrow from the breast of the dead man before wrapping the still form in the blanket that was its only coffin and shroud, and without asking himself the reason why he preserved the arrow carefully, putting it away in a chest under the seat of his wagon.
The whole family gathered about the graves, while the gentle Quaker said over them the simple, earnest prayer of the Friends, then turned sadly toward the wagons, which were ready to start again on their westward journey.
As they turned away from the lonely graves the child broke from them and with a wild cry ran back and threw herself face downward upon them.