Читать книгу Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 онлайн

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(Call to dinner.)

Later: They have excused me.

But why Icarian? I cannot understand, for certainly they did not impress me as high flyers, neither as flyers at all. They seemed the most humdrum, slow-going, even-tenor, all-dressed-alike folks I have ever seen. Every dwelling is exactly alike, log-cabins of one room, with one door, one window, a fire-place with stick chimney. I rode close by the open doors of some of the houses, and tried to talk with the women, but we could not understand each other at all. The floors, windows and everything in the houses were scrupulously clean, but not one bit of brightness or color, not a thread of carpet, or a rug, and all the women’s and girls’ dresses made of heavy blue denim, with white kerchiefs around the shoulders and pinned across the front of the waist, the skirt above the ankles, and very narrow and heavy thick-soled shoes. The men and boys all looked alike too, but I did not observe them closely enough to describe them.

There are several large, long buildings, one with a large bell in belfry on top of building. They are dining-hall, town-hall, school-house and two others. I did not learn what they are used for. All the buildings are one story, of the plainest architecture, for the one purpose of shelter from sun and storm. There is not a thing to ornament or beautify, not a shade-tree or flower, yet everything—men, women, children, houses, yards and streets—are as clean as they can be made.