2018.04.14

Today is Saturday.

It was a long, long way to Indian Territory. Almost every day the horses traveled as far as they could; almost every night Pa and Ma made camp in a new place. Sometimes they had to stay several days in one camp because a creek was flood and they couldn’t cross it till the water went down. They crossed too many creeks to count. They saw strange woods and hills, and strange country with no trees. They drove across rivers on long wooden bridges, and they came to one wide yellow river that had no bridge. That was the Missouri River. Pa drove onto a raft, and they all sat still in the wagon while the raft went swaying away from the safe land and slowly crossed all that rolling muddy-yellow water. After more days they came to hills again. In a valley the wagon stuck fast in deep black mud. Rain poured down and thunder crashed and lightning flared. There was no place to make camp and build a fire. Everything was damp and chill and miserable in the wagon, but they had to stay in it and eat cold bits of food. Next day Pa found a place on a hillside where they could camp. The rain had stopped, but they had to wait a week before the creek went down and mud dried so that Pa could dig the wagon wheels out of it and go on.