We owned only four yoke of cattle, but with some of the money received
from the sale of the plantation, we bought as many more, which gave
us sixteen oxen. We were to take with us all five of the cows and both
the horses, on which father said mother and I might ride when we were
tired of sitting in the wagon; but I knew what kind of animals ours
were under the saddle, and said to myself that it would be many a long
day before I would trust myself on the back of either.
It would have done you good to see our movable home after father had
made it ready, and by that I mean the wagon in which mother and I were
to ride. It was small compared with the other, in which were to be
carried enough furniture for a single room, farming tools, grain for
the cattle, and a host of things; but I did not give much heed to the
load because I was so deeply interested in what was to be a home for
mother and me during many a month.
That wagon was enough to attract the attention of any girl, for, fitted
up as I first saw it, the inside looked really like a playhouse, and
when I said as much to father, he declared that I was indeed the right
kind of girl to go into a wild country, if I could find anything like
sport during the tramp from Pike County to California.
I surely must tell you about that wagon before setting down anything
concerning the journey. It was what is known as a Conestoga, and one
may see many of the same kind on the Santa Fe or the Oregon trail.
Imagine a boxlike cart nearly as long as an ordinary bedroom and so
wide that I could stretch myself out at full length across the body.
The top and sides were covered with osnaburg sheeting, which is cloth
made of flax or tow. Some people really sleep between sheets made of
that coarse stuff, but it is so rough and irritating to the flesh that
I had far rather lie on the floor than in a bed where it is used.
[Illustration]
Osnaburg sheeting makes excellent wagon covers, however, for the rain
cannot soak through the cloth, and it is so cheap that one can well
afford to use it in double thickness, which serves to keep out the wind
as well as the water.