Death Valley in 49 | Page 5

so
hospitable that they gave us all we wanted free. Our supper was
generally of bread and milk, the latter always furnished gratuitously,
and I do not recollect that we were ever turned away from any house
where we asked shelter. There were no hotels, or taverns as they called
them, outside of the towns.
In due time we reached Whitehall, at the head of Lake Champlain, and
the big box in Uncle's wagon proved so heavy over the muddy roads
that he put it in a canal boat to be sent on to Cleveland, and we found it
much easier after this for there were too many mud-holes, stumps and
stones and log bridges for so heavy a load as he had. Our road many
times after this led along near the canal, the Champlain or the Erie, and
I had a chance to see something of the canal boys' life. The boy who
drove the horses that drew the packet boat was a well dressed fellow
and always rode at a full trot or a gallop, but the freight driver was
generally ragged and barefoot, and walked when it was too cold to ride,
threw stones or clubs at his team, and cursed and abused the packet-boy
who passed as long as he was in hearing. Reared as I had been I
thought it was a pretty wicked part of the world we were coming to.
We passed one village of low cheap houses near the canal. The men
about were very vulgar and talked rough and loud, nearly every one
with a pipe, and poorly dressed, loafing around the saloon, apparently
the worse for whisky. The children were barefoot, bare headed and
scantly dressed, and it seemed awfully dirty about the doors of the
shanties. Pigs, ducks and geese were at the very door, and the women I
saw wore dresses that did not come down very near the mud and big
brogan shoes, and their talk was saucy and different from what I had

ever heard women use before. They told me they were Irish people--the
first I had ever seen. It was along here somewhere that I lost my little
whip and to get another one made sad inroads into the little purse of
pennies my father gave me. We traveled slowly on day after day. There
was no use to hurry for we could not do it. The roads were muddy, the
log ways very rough and the only way was to take a moderate gait and
keep it. We never traveled on Sunday. One Saturday evening my uncle
secured the privilege of staying at a well-to do farmer's house until
Monday. We had our own food and bedding, but were glad to get some
privileges in the kitchen, and some fresh milk or vegetables. After all
had taken supper that night they all sat down and made themselves
quiet with their books, and the children were as still as mice till an
early bed time when all retired. When Sunday evening came the
women got out their work--their sewing and their knitting, and the
children romped and played and made as much noise as they could,
seeming as anxious to break the Sabbath as they had been to have a
pious Saturday night. I had never seen that way before and asked my
uncle who said he guessed they were Seventh Day Baptists.
After many days of travel which became to me quite monotonous we
came to Cleveland, on Lake Erie, and here my uncle found his box of
goods, loaded it into the wagon again, and traveled on through rain and
mud, making very slow headway, for two or three days after, when we
stopped at a four-corners in Medina county they told us we were only
21 miles from Cleveland. Here was a small town consisting of a hotel,
store, church, schoolhouse and blacksmith shop, and as it was getting
cold and bad, uncle decided to go no farther now, and rented a room for
himself and aunt, and found a place for me to lodge with Daniel
Stevens' boy close by. We got good stables for our horses.
I went to the district school here, and studied reading, spelling and
Colburn's mental arithmetic, which I mastered. It began very
easy--"How many thumbs on your right hand?" "How many on your
left?" "How many altogether?" but it grew harder further on.
Uncle took employment at anything he could find to do. Chopping was
his principal occupation. When the snow began to go off he looked

around for a farm to rent for us and father to live on when he came, but
he found none such as he needed. He now got a letter from father
telling him that he had good news