Thursday, May 4.
Oh, how we did sleep last night, dreamless and sound. Our first night in the wagons was undisturbed and sweet. We were up with the birds making ready for an early start. Mother prepares breakfast, while I roll up the beds and cover closely to protect them from the dust; one of the boys milks the cows, while I assist mother, and when breakfast of hot biscuit, ham and eggs, apple-sauce, coffee, and breakfast-food (which I should have mentioned first), is over, I strain the milk into an old-fashioned churn that is big at the bottom and little at the top, cover closely and fix it in the front of the freight wagon, where it will be churned by the motion of the wagon, and we have a pat of the sweetest, most delicious butter when we stop in the evening that any one ever tasted. Mother washes the dishes, we prepare lunch for our noon meal, I stow it in the grub-box under the seat in the spring-wagon, the boys take the pipe off the little sheet-iron stove, empty the fire out and leave it to cool, while I am putting things away in the places where they belong. It is wonderful how soon we have learned to live in a wagon, and we seem to have an abundance of room.
When horses are harnessed, oxen yoked—and everything ready to start, we girls proceed to saddle our ponies; some of the boys usually come and offer assistance, which is politely declined, as we are going to wait upon ourselves on this trip.
The wagons start, leaving us to follow at our leisure. We don our riding-habits, made of dark-brown denim, that completely cover, and protect us from mud and dust, tie on our sun-bonnets, mount our ponies unassisted, and soon overtake and pass the wagons.
We started this morning at seven o’clock. It is delightful riding horseback in the early morning.
BLOOMFIELD, IOWA.
We were on the lookout for Bloomfield, about ten o’clock we could see the spires and steeples glittering in the sunshine. When we reached the suburbs we stopped to wait for the wagons.
When we reached the business part of the city, I dismounted and made ready to do some shopping, as a few necessary articles had been forgotten when purchasing our outfit.
“Aren’t you going with me, girls?”
“Oh, dear, no; not in these togs, short dresses, thick shoes, sun-bonnets, etc.”