Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/41

Rh Ah m#, Mother of mine! "What went we out into the wilderness for to see ? A reed shaken with the wind?" Every heart in these emigrant wagons has its history, and is treading its wine press alone. How, to the outward observer, we seem lifted, whether we will or not, by the hard and rough winds of circumstances, and borne along the high road of human life; drifting, it may be, into some quiet, sheltered, cosey corner; or, out where we should least expect to find ourselves amidst immeasurable difficulties of position.

Silence has fallen upon our party. It looks like a company of nuns, in whom all emotion was smothered long ago, till it had died. But not so really. Old Memory has taken us by the shoulders and turned us round. We are all scattered to our own homes that were. And where is mine, my dear Mother, if not with you ? So I am in your room, to greet you as you come in after tea. You hold the little hand-lamp in one hand, and you are very careful to secure the latch of the door with the other; how you place the unlighted lamp on the right hand corner of the mantleshelf, and with a care-taking glance over the room, to see