We have been meeting them all afternoon and are camping with them all around us to-night. They all seem to want my pony. I have been asked at least twenty times this afternoon to “Swap.” I gave all the same answer, “No swap.” Why, I would not give my Dick for twenty of their ponies.
The squaws and pappooses are around our camp to-night begging biscuit. They are the greatest beggars I ever saw. I do wonder if they are hungry?
We crossed the steepest, straight up and down mountain to-day that we have crossed yet. It seemed that the wagons would turn a somersault as we were making the descent.
Sim was too sick to sit up, and he would slide down in a heap, bed, bedclothes and all, against the seat and grub-box. We stopped twice to have him helped back into place. When we reached level ground he was all piled up again. Poor Sim, he is very sick. I do wish we could come across a physician. We have administered simple remedies, but seemingly without effect.
There is an old lady ninety-three years old in a train camping near us to-night. She is cheerful as a lark, sings sometimes, and is an incessant talker.
She says she is going to Oregon, where she expects to renew her youth. She looks very old and wrinkled in the face, but is very active in her movements, and not at all stooped. The people she is with are not at all refined or cultured, but I do like to talk to the old lady, she is so quaint. It makes mother seem quite a young woman to see her with an old lady more than forty years older than she is. Why, she seems just in the prime of life, and we had thought her growing old.
MORMON TOWNS IN IDAHO.
Monday, August 21.
Since we crossed the last steep mountain the horse flies have been very troublesome, the first that have bothered us all summer. I wonder if the Indians brought them?
We came through two villages to-day; they are about five miles apart. The first Bennington, the last Montpelier—pretty large names for such small places. They are Mormon towns, although this is Idaho Territory. The women appeared sad and sorrowful enough to be the wives of Mormons. I did not see one of them smile. Our wagons were thronged with women and children selling butter, eggs, cheese and vegetables. They sold eggs at seventy-five cents per dozen, butter seventy cents per pound, cheese fifty cents, potatoes twenty-five cents, and everything else in proportion. The prices seemed enormous to us, but I presume we would have purchased if they had been double what they were, for we are about starved for such things. Just think of spending a whole summer without garden productions.