made some biscuits, which were so green that my
poor mother could not eat them. She had admitted
to us that the one thing she had in the house was
saleratus, and she had used this ingredient with an
unsparing hand. When the meal was eaten she
broke the further news that there were no beds.

``The old woman can sleep with me,'' she sug-
gested, ``and the girls can sleep on the floor. The
boys will have to go to the barn.''
She and her bed were not especially attractive,
and mother decided to lie on the floor with us. We
had taken our bedding from the wagon, and we slept
very well; but though she was usually superior to
small annoyances, I think my mother resented being
called an ``old woman.'' She must have felt like
one that night, but she was only about forty-eight
years of age.

At dawn the next morning we resumed our jour-
ney, and every day after that we were able to cover
the distance demanded by the schedule arranged
before we started. This meant that some sort of
shelter usually awaited us at night. But one day
we knew there would be no houses between the place
we left in the morning and that where we were to
sleep. The distance was about twenty miles, and
when twilight fell we had not made it. In the back
of the wagon my mother had a box of little pigs,
and during the afternoon these had broken loose and