"Ef you'll put up with sech as I have—it's tol'able poor—you can go to my house and stay."
I looked now at the speaker, and discovered an elderly man, in a mixed jeans hunting-shirt—it was not the fashion to call it a blouse then—tied round the waist, a 'coon-skin cap, and "trousers accordin'." He had a rifle, or an axe—though I think it was the latter—lying across his arm, and looked wrinkled, and rough, and all drawn up with the cold. The twinkle of his deep-set eyes might be merry, or it might be sinister. I inquired where he lived.
"Why, it's rayther on the Turkey Hill Road, and about a mile from t'other; but I can go in the mornin' and show you the way. It's mighty easy gittin' over from thar to yon road."
It occurred to me that his neighbour had not once referred to him to solve the difficulty, and I wondered why; but he now rather intimated that I might as well take up with the old man's offer. I did so, without consulting my wife's opinion.
He trudged on, and I trudged after him, leading my horse,—which I did much of the way across the State,—through the snow. After a little while I discovered that we left the road, and were winding through a sort of ravine, or rather depression of the prairie, almost deserving the name of valley. The snow-covered ground—the brown, or bare bushes—the bleak, though diminutive hills—all looked cold, and wild, and dreary. My guide still trudged on, seldom looking round; and we seemed to be travelling without a road to "nowhere." My wife called me to her. Her looks gave token of alarm.
"Do you think it safe to go on with that old man? I don't like his looks, and this is a wild place. Hadn't we better go back, or try some other way? I feel afraid."
I laughed at her, but her fears troubled me. She was not given to false alarms; or, if she ever felt them, she never annoyed me with them. I cannot say that I participated in her fears now. Indeed I did not. The old man looked anything but terrible. I thought his countenance mild rather than austere. Still, these backwoodsmen were famous for a quiet ferociousness that could do a brave or terrible deed without the least fuss. I did not know what to think. But what to do seemed to admit of but one answer—I must go on with him, and trust Providence, who had brought us safely some fifteen hundred miles. My wife shuddered, perhaps trembled, and hugged the child closer; but she submitted quietly—I may say trustfully. She certainly gave him no hint of her fears.
At length—for the time did not seem very short to me, and doubtless stretched out much longer to my wife—but at length, after a long and very gradual slope down a hollow, such as I have failed to describe, we saw the habitation of our guide. It was a cabin of the rudest sort and smallest size, in what had perhaps in "crap time" been an enclosure on the ascent of a slope beyond a little wet weather brook. I took notice—for it was an interesting fact to me—that for the accommodation of my horse there was a "rail-pen," though, whether it was covered with straw, or "shucks," or prairie hay, or the cloudy sky, I do not now remember; for I have seen more such many a time since then; but there was "cawn" in another rail-pen close by. So my horse was supplied. But my wife and child must be got into the house first; and in we went.
Reader, in that little dearborn-wagon was all I had in this world, or of it; and though, to say the truth, all, except the wife and child, might have been well sold for a very few hundred dollars—and probably that is an enormous over-estimate—yet it was precious to me, for much of their comfort depended on its preservation. And a few hundred dollars—nay, a few dollars—would make quite an addition to the comforts of the habitation we entered, and of those who dwelt in it. There was neither table nor chair. The puncheon floor was not air-tight nor a dead level. The stick chimney and hearth were covered with clay; but there was a fire in it. The bed—but we have not got to the bed yet.
I suppose it happened very well that we had our provisions with us, for I saw no cooking nor anything to cook. I forgot to say, that the inmates when we arrived were a boy, dressed something like his father, and a girl, whose single garment—we judged from appearances—was a home-spun cotton frock, not white, though I think it had never been dyed. Both were barefoot. They might be twelve and fourteen years old.