Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/18

 not but look a bit regretfully after our household treasures, exposed to both rain and mud during a drive of twenty miles. Owing to the almost impassable condition of the roads, only light loads could be take; consequently eight long days were spent in this herculean task.

The men drove up one day and back the next, passing the intervening night in the old deserted home. Finally came the glad morning of our release from the leaky, dismal, and now plundered cottage. The last load was vanishing down the street. At the door stood our newly acquired surrey,—a second-hand one, a queer-looking old thing, not unlike a palanquin on wheels. It was loaded to the guards. As we stowed ourselves away within its gloomy interior, the school children, at the risk of tardy marks, halted to witness the imposing start, nudging one another and giggling furtively.

We started out, with Tom holding the reins and a yard of breakfast bacon, while his knees clasped a five-gallon can of kerosene. Bert was clinging desperately to a cuckoo clock, a sugar-cured ham, and a huge sheaf of rose-cuttings. He sat so embowered in green leaves that he resembled a May Queen. Mary breathed heavily under the burden of eight pounds of creamery butter and a kerosene lamp with a very large shade,—a most aggressive thing, with javelin-like points. Forming a sort of barricade in front of me were piled a dozen