with the soreness in his heart almost healed and his bruised spirit at
rest.

And now the new mother came again, and helped him to dress, and combed
his hair, and drew his mind away by degrees from the dismal yesterday,
by telling him about the wonderful journey he was going to take and the
strange things he was going to see. And after breakfast they two went
alone to the grave, and his heart went out to his new friend and his
untaught eloquence poured the praises of his buried idol into her ears
without let or hindrance. Together they planted roses by the headboard
and strewed wild flowers upon the grave; and then together they went
away, hand in hand, and left the dead to the long sleep that heals all
heart-aches and ends all sorrows.




CHAPTER III.

Whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the
emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of
enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious
dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves
were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the
kitchen fire.

At the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near a
shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry
Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its
mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight,