Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/82

78 with pistols; the latter are loaded, and he asks me to please place them under his bed within reach. This, mother, is a necessity of the country; and sick as he is, the habit makes him ask for the safe deposit of his means of personal defence. I feel so glad I have one pillow here for him, and two of those large, heavy blankets, because on this narrow couch one blanket can be doubled so as to answer for two. Poor fellow, he simply remarks, "How good the bed feels," and is fast asleep. I unlock the blue chest and dig up from its capacious depths the old piano cover, out of which I create a drapery around the front side of the little bed. Little Daisy and myself creep round as quietly as the mice ; and the poor worn man, just home from a tramp through this great world of territory, sleeping in wagons or under them, speaking to assembled settlers in the open plain and under the stars, with the damp ground to stand upon, has a chance, I hope, to sleep away the indications of long sickness. But no ; when he sleeps even, there is a burning heat 'fusing itself through his frame. I bring another sort of couch, made up for the occasion, close to the