he Reeds were
gathered before their big log fire, they had talked of the wonderful
adventure, while Mrs. Reed's skilful fingers fashioned such garments
as would be needed for the journey. And while she sewed, Grandma Keyes
told the children marvelous tales of Indian massacres on those very
plains across which they were going to travel when warmer days came.
Grandma told her breathless audience of giant red men, whose tomahawks
were always ready to descend on the heads of unlucky travelers who
crossed their path--told so many blood-curdling stories of meetings
between white men and Indian warriors that the little boys, James and
Thomas, and little black-eyed Patty and older Virginia, were
spellbound as they listened.

To Virginia, an imaginative girl, twelve years old, the very flames,
tongueing their way up the chimney in fantastic shapes, became bold
warriors in mortal combat with emigrants on their way to the golden
West, and even after she had gone to bed it seemed to her that
"everything in the room, from the high old-fashioned bedposts down to
the shovel and tongs, was transformed into the dusky tribe in paint
and feathers, all ready for a war-dance" as they loomed large out of
shadowy corners. She would hide her head under the clothes, scarcely
daring to wink or breathe, then come boldly to the surface, face her
shadowy foes, and fall asleep without having come to harm at the hands
of the invisibles.

Going to California--oh the ecstatic terror of it! And now the day and
the hour of departure had come!

The Reeds' wagons had all been made to order, and carefully planned by
Mr. Reed himself with a view to comfort in every detail, so they were
the best of their kind that ever crossed the plains, and especially
was their family wagon a real pioneer _car de luxe_, made to give
every possible convenience to Mrs. Reed and Grandma Keyes. When the
trip had been first discussed by the Reeds, the old lady, then
seventy-five years old and for the most part confined to her bed,
showed such enthusiasm that her son declared, laughingly: "I declare,
mother, one would think you were going with us."

"I am!" was the quick rejoinder. "You do not think I am going to be
left behind when my dear daughter and her children are going to take
such a journey as that, do you? I thought you had more sense, James!"

And Grandma did go, despite her years and her infirmities.

The Reeds' family wagon was drawn by four yoke of fine oxen,