"Why, Mrs. Brown," said I, "you must recollect me: I was a juryman on the trial between Filkins and Beadle."
"Come to take a good look at you, and so you was; but I was so frustered that day that I didn't know which eend I stood on. How pesky sassy them 'turneys-at-la' are!" continued Mrs. Brown, as she seated herself in the big rocking-chair.
"Mrs. Brown, have you lived long in this country?" I asked.
"Why, bless your soul, yes! Didn't you know that? We come in from the 'Hio twenty years ago, and lived her 'fore there was anybody, nor nothing but bears and catamounts."
"How, in the world, did you manage to get through the country twenty years ago?" I asked.
"Well, it _was_ a pretty orful time," said the old lady; "it almost brings the tears into my eyes now to think on't. There was my husband and four children--Lem and Jim, and Molly and Bessy. Lem was about twenty, and Jim about fifteen, and Molly and Bessy ten and twelve; and we were all piled inter a big cover'd wagon, drawn by two yoke of cattle, with what little furniter we had; and in this kinder way we started for--I didn't know where."
"Where did you eat and sleep?" inquired I.
"We bunk'd in the wagon nights, and camp'd out to eat; and so we travelled for two months."
"No, we didn't," said she, heaving a sigh; "little Bessy died" (she wiped away a tear); "she got the measles somewhere on the road; and everybody was afraid of catchin' on 'em; and nobody would come near us, and so we had to stop and take care of her in the wagon the best way we could. We done all we could think of, but she kept growin' worse and worse, 'till one mornin' she died."
"And we had to bury her in a strange place--a high knoll in the woods by the road-side--and go away and leave her there alone. O, Mr. ----," she exclaimed, "I've dream'd a thousand times of that spot in the woods: what wouldn't I give if I could go and find it!"
"What did you do when you first arrived here?" I inquired.
"Why, it was all trees all over, everywhere, then. There warn't any houzens, nor any roads to travel on, nor no white folks but Venison Styles, and some other hunters who are gone away now; nor anything to live on; and nothin' to be heard nights but the varmints screamin'," said Mrs. Brown, laying down her knitting-work, and shoving up her spectacles with a convulsive twitch, for she was getting eloquent. "There warn't a pound of meat for fifty miles round--no pork for love nor money--and so we cut down a place, and built a log shanty, and liv'd on deer meat, for deers were as thick as hops all over."