Ben Ch 5

WINTER brought more snow than usual that year. Folks were glad to snuggle closer to their fireplaces during the cold evenings, and talk over plans for the move that had been openly arranged for the coming springtime. Everybody was making preparations to leave then for another home; but just where it was to be, no one knew.

One night, shortly after Christmas time, Uncle Sam White and Uncle Starling came to Ben's home with rather startling news. They both had been chosen to go with a selected vanguard, which, under the leadership of President Young, would seek out a new homeland in the far West. Naturally, there was excitement among the family over that announcement. Days that followed were busier than ever with getting everything ready for these young pioneers to make that journey into the wilds.

"Oh, I wish you would take me with you," said Ben.

"Not now," replied Uncle Starling; "you will have to stay and help your father and mother follow our trail. It won't be many months before you will be doing that. Old Buck and Brindle will pull your wagon along."

February Fourth of 1846 was another day of excitement for all Nauvoo. Early on the morning of that day, a bitterly cold one, a long train of covered wagons, drawn by good horses, mules, and oxen, made its way down to the Mississippi. The great river was completely frozen over with ice thick enough to hold up teams and wagons.

Good-byes had been said at the various homes. Not many folk dared to risk getting toes and noses frost-bitten. Some of them did watch from their windows and waved good luck to the train as it wound its way slowly over the river and finally disappeared among the hills of Iowa on the western shore.

Suddenly Ben asked, "Where's Bones?" No one knew. His father searched the barn and the shop, but no dog was to be found.

"He's gone with Uncle Starling! I just know he has!" exclaimed the boy, beginning to cry.

"I'm afraid he has," said his father; "but never mind; we'll get him back again. Anyway, your uncle might need Bones worse than we do, out in that Indian country."

There was some comfort in that thought; yet Ben was pretty lonely for his dog. He did not get over the loss, either, until one of the neighbors, Brother Coltrin, gave him a puppy. Towser, as Ben promptly named his new pal, was soon to grow into a stout watch dog, and to follow his young master on a long journey.

"Make ready, everyone, to follow the pioneer vanguard into the West," came a call from the leaders left in Nauvoo to guide the Saints.

That meant harder work than ever for all. Every family must get ready its own outfit and supplies of food, bedding, and clothing, seeds for planting, tools for building, books to read, furniture that might be carried, and other necessities for settling in some unknown land. For the mothers and fathers all this meant long hours of toil every day. For boys and girls of Ben's age, it was work, too, but there was something of exciting adventure in it.

"Maybe we'll see lots of buffalo," said Joe one day as he and Ben were helping to parch corn.

"I'm going to get Father to teach me how to shoot his rifle," replied Ben, "so I can help get game on the trip?”

The boys stirred the crackling corn in the big iron kettles with more vigor as they thought of that outdoor sport. Chatting about things to come helped them to forget being tired with the work they were doing. It wasn't easy to parch bushel after bushel of the yellow grain; but their fathers said the families must have enough to last till next harvest and corn would keep better when it was parched. That was a kind of pioneer "cornflakes" or "grape-nuts" to be eaten with the milk that the bossy cows would give night and morning as they traveled.

Of course there were other kinds of food--all that could be gathered. Bags of cornmeal for "Johnny cakes"; hams and bacon and lard, dried fruits and a few sacks of nuts-were a. few of the good things Ben remembered. Nor did he forget the two jugs of molasses his mother had stowed away for the trip.

"We are going to need all the wagons can carry and more, before we can get crops in whatever land we settle," said Ben's father.

He was right. The pioneers and their boys and girls did see some hungry days--a good many of them during the next few years ahead.

It was about the middle of May, just after Ben had passed his ninth birthday, when the signal came for the family to cross the Mississippi for the West. Four stout covered wagons, each drawn by three yoke of oxen, finally left the homes that the boy's parents and grandparents and one of his uncles had built. The old wagon shop also had to be left behind, quiet and lonely. No one would buy these places that had taken so much work to build. Some of the heavier furniture and the benches had also to be abandoned.

"There's one comfort," said Grandmother White. "We are leaving the mobs behind, too."

Down by the great river some hundreds of wagons were waiting to be taken across to the Iowa shore on the ferryboat. All day it kept crossing and recrossing the stream.

When it came time for Ben's father and the others of his family to drive up the gangplank to the boat, little Paul, frightened as he looked upon the wide, moving water, cried, "Oh, mother, let's surround it."

Drawing him close in her arms beside baby Hannah, she quieted his fears, and he fell asleep. When he awoke, they were on their first campground among the rolling hills of Iowa.

Rosy dawn was just lighting up the wide Mississippi when Ben opened his eyes that May morning in the pioneer camp. A crackling wood fire in front of their tent had brought him out of a sound sleep. It was to be a lively day for him.

"Well, you're up with the chickens," Grandmother White greeted him, "just in time to fetch the water and to help me make you some 'Johnny cake.' Here, take this pail, and use this dipper so you won't rile the spring. I'll be mixin' the 'salt 'risin' with the cornmeal while you're gone."

It was only a few rods from their camp to where a crystal stream bubbled forth from a stony glen to go dancing down to the big river. Ben soon was back with the clear water. That won grandmother's praise.

"Better come with Uncle Lorenzo and me, Ben, to help get the cows milked," said his father. "We might need you."

Off the three went, pails in hand, to a meadowy stretch along the river, where night herders had kept the cows within bounds. Others were there for the same purpose. It wasn't so easy to separate the animals, and get them to keep quiet while the milking went on.

Excitement in crossing the river and being pastured in a strange place made some of the cows a bit unruly. A few of them had to be roped and held. After a good deal of chasing, Ben understood why his help was needed. The chase gave him a hearty appetite; too, for the good Johnny cakes and bacon that were ready when they got back with the milk.

Breakfast over; there was another task for the boy. He and Joe Phelps with some other lads were given the work of herding the milk cows during the day. There was some fun to be found with this duty. As the cows grazed among the woods, the boys had sport with squirrels and cottontail rabbits. Ben's new dog, Towser, was always alert to scare these little animals, and run them to their holes in the trees or underground. He didn't quite succeed in catching any of them, however, so the boys didn't get any squirrel or rabbit pie.

One thing that did come from this running through the woods was a discovery that meant food for all the camp. Everywhere the lads ran they found quail. Flocks of these plump little "Bob Whites" would go scurrying before them, or fly into near-by bushes and trees. When the cows were taken over by the night-herders that evening, the lads ran to their various tents to tell excitedly about what they had found.

"Why, Father," exclaimed Ben, "there are thousands of them, and they are so tame I could almost pick them UP.”

Other boys had the same story to tell. As a result the men busied themselves that night making traps to snare some of the game birds. Ben's father had caught quail as a boy in Ohio, so he knew just how to do it.

"They make mighty good eating," he said. "We'd better get what we can of them. It will help out the 'Johnny cake and bacon."'

Next day, while they waited there on the western shore of the Mississippi for further preparations to be made for the journey west, the men and boys took time out to catch quail. Ben and Joe were getting rare sport, up tilting box-like traps made for them. First they would sprinkle some grain to lead the quail to the traps, then hide away behind bushes or a tree and await results. When any of the unsuspecting birds would come pecking the grain on the way to the trap, the boys could hardly hold still. But they managed to do so, until with the quail right under the box, they would jerk the string and down would go the box over the game. That afternoon they came back to camp with about a dozen birds each enough to give a feast of quail to all their folk in the camp.

"Seems like Providence to me," said Grandmother White, "this getting of good food out in the wilderness." Many of the pioneers felt just the same way over these little birds, which came in great flocks during the exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo.

One who found the quail especially "good eating" was Ben's Grandfather. All the bard winter he had been "feeling poorly," as his wife said. Six years before, he had come to Nauvoo hale and hearty; and with hard work he and Ben's Grandmother had built a comfortable home, and developed a fine farm.

"Uriel just worried himself sick," she told Grandmother White, "and the shock of bein' driven from the home we have struggled all these years to make-well, it has put him in bed. But he seems better today. The quail with toast I gave him this morning is the first food he seems to have liked in months. It started him to telling Ben about catching 'Bob Whites' in the old Mohawk River country. Maybe he's taken a turn for the better."

"Let's hope and pray so," said Grandmother White. The hopes of these pioneer mothers were not to be realized. When the covered wagon train left the Mississippi River camp, as it did a few days later, Ben's 'Grandfather was still in bed ill. Jolting over the rutty road, up and down the rolling hills of Iowa, made him worse. It was rough going for even hardy men and women. For the aged and ill, the journey was often unbearable.

One morning, while the caravan was breaking camp, word was passed to the family and friends that Father Uriel could go no farther. His sons and daughters gathered around the wagon. Everything that could be done for the aged pioneer was done, but nothing they could do seemed to help. Finally, just before noon, after telling them to be true to the faith, and take care of their mother, he fell into his last sleep.

That day the caravan remained in camp. Ben's father and his Uncle Lorenzo found a dry, fallen log, and from it sawed boards to make a coffin. This was lined with cloth by the mothers. A simple, yet impressive funeral service was conducted by one of the leaders, and the grandfather was laid to rest in a grove near a large walnut tree. Next morning the caravan, with two Saddened, but courageous grandmothers, moved on westward.