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

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Our second Sunday has not been much of an improvement on our first. The first we worked, to-day we have played. The boys swung us all morning, until we were ready to “holler nuff.” We had Sunday dinner between two and three o’clock, then we wrote letters to friends at home, read until sleepy, took a nap of an hour, then Mr. Suitor and Mr. Rain came, and we listened to their frightful stories of what the Indians are doing to emigrants.

I left them in disgust, to come and record our misdoings of this, our second, Sunday on the road. It is almost bedtime, and I must make the beds, for we are early to bed and early to rise while on this trip.

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Monday, May 15.

Alas, alas! How can I write the disastrous happenings of this day? My hand trembles and my pencil refuses to write intelligibly when I attempt to record the sad, oh, so sad, accident that has befallen us. We parted from our visitors this morning, and started on our way, feeling rested and glad to be journeying on again. How little we knew of what a day would bring forth. We stopped for lunch at noon in a little vale, or depression, on the prairie, but where there was no water. Just as we had finished our lunch, Neelie came, she said, to see if we could make an exchange for the afternoon, her mother riding with mine, and I with the young folks in the family wagon. Of course it was soon arranged, and I told her I would come as soon as I helped mother put things away. (We sometimes visit in this way.) Mrs. Kerfoot soon came around, and when everything was ready I started to go to their wagon. It was the last one in the train. As I was passing Mr. Milburn’s wagon he called to me to “Come and get a drink of water.” He had taken a long walk, and found clear, pure water, not very cold, but much better than none at all. I gratefully accepted a cup. He and his sister then invited me to ride with them. I told them of my engagement with Neelie, and, of course, they excused me. Oh, that I had accepted their invitation; just such a little thing as that might have prevented this dreadful accident. Such great events turn on such little hinges sometimes. About three o’clock in the afternoon, as we were plodding along after the fashion of emigrant teams, we young people in the last wagon, having a jolly sociable time, with song and laughter, fun and merriment, the front wagons stopped. Ezra, who was driving, turned out of the road and passed some of the wagons to see what the trouble was. Mr. Kerfoot came running toward us, calling to Neelie, “Get the camphor, daughter, Mr. Milburn has shot himself somehow, and has fainted.”