ored.

Father preceded us to the Michigan woods, and there, with his oldest
son, James, took up a claim. They cleared a space in the wilderness just
large enough for a log cabin, and put up the bare walls of the cabin
itself. Then father returned to Lawrence and his work, leaving James
behind. A few months later (this was in 1859), my mother, my two
sisters, Eleanor and Mary, my youngest brother, Henry, eight years of
age, and I, then twelve, went to Michigan to work on and hold down the
claim while father, for eighteen months longer, stayed on in Lawrence,
sending us such remittances as he could. His second and third sons, John
and Thomas, remained in the East with him.

Every detail of our journey through the wilderness is clear in my mind.
At that time the railroad terminated at Grand Rapids, Michigan, and
we covered the remaining distance--about one hundred miles--by wagon,
riding through a dense and often trackless forest. My brother James met
us at Grand Rapids with what, in those days, was called a lumber-wagon,
but which had a horrible resemblance to a vehicle from the health
department. My sisters and I gave it one cold look and turned from
it; we were so pained by its appearance that we refused to ride in it
through the town. Instead, we started off on foot, trying to look as if
we had no association with it, and we climbed into the unwieldy vehicle
only when the city streets were far behind us. Every available inch of
space in the wagon was filled with bedding and provisions. As yet we
had no furniture; we were to make that for ourselves when we reached
our cabin; and there was so little room for us to ride that we children
walked by turns, while James, from the beginning of the journey to its
end, seven days later, led our weary horses.

To my mother, who was never strong, the whole experience must have been
a nightmare of suffering and stoical endurance. For us children there
were compensations. The expedition took on the character of a high
adventure, in which we sometimes had shelter and sometimes failed
to find it, sometimes were fed, but often went hungry. We forded
innumerable streams, the wheels of the heavy wagon sinking so deeply
into the stream-beds that we often had to empty our load before we could
get them out again. Fallen trees lay across our paths, rivers caused
long detours, while again and again we lost our way or were turned aside
by impenetrable forest tangles.

Our first day's journe