Heretofore my idea had been that pioneer life was a period of romantic freedom.  When the long, white-covered wagons, bound for the far West, passed by, I thought of the novelty of a six-months’ journey through the bright spring and summer days in a house on wheels, meals under shady trees and beside babbling brooks, sleeping in the open air, and finding a home, at last, where land was cheap, the soil rich and deep, and where the grains, vegetables, fruit, and flowers grew bountifully with but little toil.  But a few months of pioneer life permanently darkened my rosy ideal of the white-covered wagon, the charming picnics by the way, and the paradise at last.  I found many of these adventurers in unfinished houses and racked with malaria; in one case I saw a family of eight, all ill with chills and fever.  The house was half a mile from the spring water on which they depended and from which those best able, from day to day, carried the needed elixir to others suffering with the usual thirst.  Their narrations of all the trials of the long journey were indeed heartrending.

In one case a family of twelve left their comfortable farm in Illinois, much against the earnest protests of the mother; she having ten children, the youngest a baby then in her arms.  All their earthly possessions were stored in three wagons, and the farm which the mother owned was sold before they commenced their long and perilous journey.  There was no reason for going except that the husband had the Western fever.  They were doing well in Illinois, on a large farm within two miles of a village, but he had visions of a bonanza near the setting sun.  Accordingly they started.  At the end of one month the baby died.  A piece of wood from the cradle was all they had to mark its lonely resting place.  With sad hearts they went on, and, in a few weeks, with grief for her child, her old home, her kindred and friends, the mother also died.  She, too, was left alone on the far-off prairies, and the sad pageant moved on.  Another child soon shared the same fate, and then a span of horses died, and one wagon, with all the things they could most easily spare, was abandoned.  Arrived at their destination none of the golden dreams was realized.  The expensive journey, the struggles in starting under new circumstances, and the loss of the mother’s thrift and management, made the father so discouraged and reckless that much of his property was wasted, and his earthly career was soon ended.  Through the heroic energy and good management of the eldest daughter, the little patrimony, in time, was doubled, and the children well brought up and educated in the rudiments of learning, so that all became respectable members of society.  Her advice to all young people is, if you are comfortably established in the East, stay there.  There is no royal road to wealth and ease, even in the Western States!