oy would be like his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful
the girl would be more like her. Had often thought she was not fit for a
pioneer's wife."

"Why?"

"O, she was not strong enough, and had seen some of his friends' wives
in Kansas who could do more work. But he never complained,--was so
kind." ("Two souls," etc.)

Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on one hand, holding the
poor, wearied, and limp-looking baby wearily on the other arm, dirty,
drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing upon her features no
longer fresh or young, but still refined and delicate, and even in her
grotesque slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of birth and
breeding, it was not to be wondered that I did not fall into excessive
raptures over the barbarian's kindness. Emboldened by my sympathy, she
told me how she had given up, little by little, what she imagined to be
the weakness of her early education, until she found that she acquired
but little strength in her new experience. How, translated to a
backwoods society, she was hated by the women, and called proud and
"fine," and how her dear husband lost popularity on that account with
his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts, and partly from
other circumstances, he started with her to California. An account of
that tedious journey. How it was a dreary, dreary waste in her memory,
only a blank plain marked by a little cairn of stones,--a child's
grave. How she had noticed that little Willie failed. How she had called
Abner's attention to it, but, man-like, he knew nothing about children,
and pooh-poohed it, and was worried by the stock. How it happened that
after they had passed Sweetwater, she was walking beside the wagon one
night, and looking at the western sky, and she heard a little voice say
"Mother." How she looked into the wagon and saw that little Willie was
sleeping comfortably and did not wish to wake him. How that in a few
moments more she heard the same voice saying "Mother." How she came
back to the wagon and leaned down over him, and felt his breath upon her
face, and again covered him up tenderly, and once more resumed her weary
journey beside him, praying to God for his recovery. How with her face
turned to the sky she heard the same voice saying "Mother," and directly
a great bright star shot away from its brethren and expired. And how
she knew what had happened, and ran to the wagon again only to pillow
a little pinched and