Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/19

Rh his night and any other of their lives, tent minutes after they lay about the floor. They never sentimentalize.

When the time pointed to two o'clock, baby Ella was laid beside her mother; the rocking-chair back laid upon the floor; my cloak spread in it, and with little Alice, kitten-like rolled up by my side, I took my first lesson in Kansas camping. It was not half as bad as I expected. A night, even on the floor, will come to an end; ours did not commence till midnight, and morning light came in at the usual time. Our women looked quite tired out, and not a little ill-used; but a good breakfast brightened us all up, and at half-past seven we took to the cars again.

Consider us going back through those doors in curious places, the mystery attendant upon them all dispersed by daylight; ten small children, one more than the martyr Kogers had. Surely we were martyrs, what with the carpet-bags, the shawls, basket of provision, a child of our own, or of some other mother, tugging at our skirts, with incessant injunctions "not to let go," "not to walk so slow," the clamorous outcries of every other body,