“‘Why they’re apples,’ she exclaimed. ‘Enough dried apples to make a pie, if only I had some sugar.’ She didn’t tell her husband about what she had found. I’ll wait until the sugar barrel comes, she thought, and surprise him.
“At last the rain stopped and the sun and the wind dried the fields and the trails. The road to Sturgeon Bay was open, and Great-grandfather started off with the ox team and the big-wheeled wagon. The trip took two days, and on the evening of the second day the creaking of the wagon wheels and the lowing of the oxen announced his return.
“How happy they were to be all together again. Great-grandfather picked the children up and swung them in the air. The little girls each got a stick of striped peppermint candy and Nick got a mouth organ. Great-grandmother got a length of calico for a new dress.
“After supper they sat in the dooryard enjoying the mild spring evening. Nick almost learned to play Yankee Doodle, and he entertained them while his father talked of the news at the settlement.
“‘I saw a Boston paper,’ he said. ‘The Texas treaty of annexation has been signed. Tyler will find himself in trouble over that. The Mexican government says it means war. The Indians have pulled out of the country along the shore of Lake Superior, and the white men are moving in fast. Bob McIntyre says that iron has been discovered at Marquette and copper at Kewanaw Point.’
“Great-grandfather leaned over and knocked the bowl of his pipe against a rock. ‘I heard something amusing, Mother,’ he said. ‘Folks say that a dentist in Hartford, Connecticut, has discovered a painless method of pulling teeth. Laughing gas, they call it. Ha! Ha! Did you ever hear of anything so far fetched?’
“‘What are they reading?’ asked Great-grandmother with her hand on her cheek.
“‘Reading, indeed,’ said her husband. ‘Sure, and they’re all too busy for that, but if it was reading they had time for it would be a book by a Frenchman, Alexander Dumas.’
“‘Yes,’ said Great-grandmother, leaning forward. ‘What is the name of the book?’
“‘It’s a novel,’ said Great-grandfather, ‘by the name of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, but that,’ he continued, ‘is of no real importance. Something wonderful and strange has happened that will conquer the space of loneliness of this great country more than anything that has happened so far. A man by the name of Morse has built a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Imagine that, over forty miles.’