CHAPTER VIII

MY LOAD RECEIVES AN EMBARRASSING ADDITION

I still had some corn for my cattle, of the original supply which I had
got from Rucker in Madison. Hay was fifteen dollars a ton, and all it
cost the producer was a year's foresight and the labor of putting it up;
for there were millions of acres of wild grass going to waste which made
the sweet-smelling hay that old horsemen still prefer to tame hay. It
hadn't quite the feeding value, pound for pound, that the best timothy
and clover has; but it was a wonderful hay that could be put up in the
clear weather of the fall when the ground is dry and warm, and cured so
as to be free from dust. My teams never got the heaves when I fed
prairie hay. It graveled me like sixty to pay such a price, but I had to
do it because the season was just between hay and grass. Sometimes I
thought of waiting over until the summer of 1856 to make hay for sale to
the movers; but having made my start for my farm I could not bring
myself to give up reaching it that spring. So I only waited occasionally
to break in or rest up the foot-sore and lame cattle for which I traded
from time to time.

The Fewkes family went on after I had given them some butter, some side
pork and a milking of milk. While I was baking pancakes that last
morning, Rowena came to my fire, and snatching the spider away from me
took the job off my hands, baking the cakes while I ate. She was a
pretty girl, slim and well developed, and she had a fetching way with
her eyes after friendly relations were established with her--which was
pretty hard because she seemed to feel that every one looked down on