The little Princess settled down beside him, her chin in her hand.
That the reader may know as much about the Peniman family and their great adventure of crossing the plains as did the little Princess, we will leave the wagons lumbering slowly along over the baking plains and return to the Muskingum Valley in Ohio from whence they made their start.
CHAPTER IV
LEAVING THE OLD HOME
It was on the morning of May 15, 1856, that Joe Peniman awoke as the first grey streaks of morning were coming in the sky. In the yard beneath his window he could hear the sound of voices, footsteps going to and fro. Inside there was the sound of bumping and thumping of furniture, of much talking, the hurried noises of preparation for some great event.
He started up and glanced at the window. Day was coming! The Day! The day he had been dreaming of and hoping for and longing for for months!
He leaped out of bed with a shrill yip of joy and pulled the bedclothes off his slumbering brother.
"Hi, Lige," he shouted, "wake up! It's to-morrow—I mean it's to-day—it's The Day at last!"
Lige raised a sleepy face from the pillows, blinked once or twice, rubbed his nose, then sat up with a jerk.