olk made
plans here as they had at home. A church marched with us as well as the
law and courts; and, what was more, the schools went also; for by the
faint flicker of the firelight many parents taught their children each
day as they moved westward to their new homes. History shows these
children were well taught. There were persons of education and culture
with us.

Music we had, and of a night time, even while the coyotes were calling
and the wind whispering in the short grasses of the Plains, violin and
flute would sometimes blend their voices, and I have thus heard songs
which I would not exchange in memory for others which I have heard in
surroundings far more ambitious. Sometimes dances were held on the
greensward of our camps. Regularly the Sabbath day was observed by at
least the most part of our pilgrims. Upon all our party there seemed to
sit an air of content and certitude. Of all our wagons, I presume one
was of greatest value. It was filled with earth to the brim, and in it
were fruit trees planted, and shrubs; and its owner carried seeds of
garden plants. Without doubt, it was our mission and our intent to take
with us such civilization as we had left behind.

So we marched, mingled, and, as some might have said, motley in our
personnel--sons of some of the best families in the South, men from the
Carolinas and Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana, men from Pennsylvania and
Ohio; Roundhead and Cavalier, Easterner and Westerner, Germans, Yankees,
Scotch-Irish--all Americans. We marched, I say, under a form of
government; yet each took his original marching orders from his own
soul. We marched across an America not yet won. Below us lay the Spanish
civilization--Mexico, possibly soon to be led by Britain, as some
thought. North of us was Canada, now fully alarmed and surely led by
Britain. West of us, all around us, lay the Indian tribes. Behind, never
again to be seen by most of us who marched, lay the homes of an earlier
generation. But we marched, each obeying the orders of his own soul.
Some day the song of this may be sung; some day, perhaps, its canvas may
be painted.

CHAPTER XXV

OREGON

The spell and the light of each path we pursue--
If woman be there, there is happiness too.
--Moore.

Twenty miles a day, week in and week out, we edged westward up the
Platte, in heat and dust part of the time, often plagued at night by
clouds of m