Читать книгу Martha of California: A Story of the California Trail - Otis James - Страница 17

Up to this time mother and I had but little trouble in preparing the meals whenever we came to a halt; but I heard some of the men say that within a few days after we were once on the trail, all this would be changed. There would be many times when we might not find sufficient fuel to keep a fire in the stove, when we would feel the pangs of thirst because of not being able to get enough water, and when, the stock of provisions which we had brought with us having been consumed, we would know what it was to be hungry.

When I repeated to mother what I had heard, she nodded her head sadly, replying that she had thought of all these things when father first determined to seek a new home in the California country, and she doubted not that we would come to know much suffering, before we arrived at our journey's end.

As may be supposed, I was not in a cheerful mood when Ellen and I went to bed that night. During the half hour or more while we lay there wakeful, we spoke of all the possibilities of the future, and almost regretted that our parents had decided to leave Pike County, for surely they could find nowhere on the face of this earth a place more agreeable in which to live.