Early in April the life began to stir more briskly in the great camp
that sprawled along either side of the swollen, muddy river. From dawn
to dark each day the hills echoed with the noise of many works, the
streets were alive with men and women going and coming on endless
errands, and with excited children playing at games inspired by the
occasion. Wagons were mended and loaded with provisions and tools, oxen
shod, ox-bows renewed, guns put in order, bullets moulded, and the
thousand details perfected of a migration so hazardous. They were busy,
noisy, excited, happy days.

At last, in the middle of April, the signs were seen to be right. Grass
grew and water ran, and their part, allotted by the Lord, was to brave
the dangers of that forbidding land that lay under the western sun.
Then came a day of farewells and merry-making. In the afternoon, the day
being mild and sunny, there was a dance in the bowery,--a great arbour
made of poles and brush and wattling. Here, where the ground had been
trodden firm, the age and maturity as well as the youth and beauty of
Israel gathered in such poor festal array as they had been able to save
from their ravaged stores.

The Twelve Apostles led off in a double cotillion, to the moving strains
of a violin and horn, the lively jingle of a string of sleigh-bells, and
the genial snoring of a tambourine. Then came dextrous displays in the
dances of our forbears, who followed the fiddle to the Fox-chase Inn or
Garden of Gray's Ferry. There were French Fours, Copenhagen jigs,
Virginia reels,--spirited figures blithely stepped. And the grave-faced,
square-jawed Elders seemed as eager as the unthinking youths and maidens
to throw off for the moment the burden of their cares.

From midday until the April sun dipped below the sharp skyline of the