Talk to me about getting married and settling down here in the West! I don’t do that thing till I’m a greater goose than I am now, for love nor money. It is a common saying here, that “this is a fine country for men and dogs, but women and oxen have to take it.” The secret of it is that farmers’ wives have to do all their work in one room, without any help, and almost nothing to work with. If ever I had the mind to take the vestal vow, it has been since I “emigrated.” You’ll see me coming back one of these years, a “right smart” old maid, my fat sides and cheeks shaking with “the agey,” to the tune of “Oh, take your time, Miss Lucy!”
I’ve a good mind to give you a picture, for the sun is setting, and it makes me feel “sort o’ romantic.” Well, in the first place, make a great wide daub of green, away off as far as the sunset; streak it a little deeper, half-way there, for the wheat fields. A little to the right make a smooth, bluish green hill, as even as a potato hill,--that’s the Blue Mound. A little one side, make a hundred little red, black, and white specks on the grass,--them’s the “cattle-brutes.” Right against the sun, you may make a little bit of a house, with one side of the roof hanging over like an umbrella,--that’s Mr. Merritt’s. And here, right before you, make a little whitewashed log-cabin, with a Virginia fence all round it ever so far, and a bank on one side sloping down to a little brook, where honey-locust trees a-plenty grow. Make it green in a great circle all round, just as if you were out at sea, where it’s all blue; then put on a great round blue sky for a cover, throw in a very few clouds, and have a “picter,” or part of one, of our prairie. There now, don’t you think I should have been an artist, if circumstances had only developed my natural genius? All send love. Your everlasting sister,
The pioneer family found it necessary to move their main headquarters, for Mr. Spaulding, the husband of Emeline, decided to give up farming, and become a minister. Ministers were scarce in that region, and seeing the need, he carried out a cherished plan of his youth by being ordained as a preacher of the gospel. Consequently they deserted their home, and went to Woodburn, with all their newly acquired furniture on three wagons, each drawn by three yoke of oxen that splashed through the mud, until they came to a cottage possessing more rooms than the house they had left, though the doors were made of rough boards. These rooms were papered by Lucy, with Boston “Journals.” She grew to love this cottage, for it represented home to her on the prairie.