bushes to dry. All this is such a peaceful recital that I began
to think I need not keep a diary at all, till one hot day when I was
in the wagon helping Patty cut out some doll's dresses, Jim came
running up to the wagon, terribly excited and crying out:

"'Indians, Virginia! Come and see! They have to take us across the
river!' Out he rushed and I after him, with every story Grandma ever
told us dancing through my brain. Now there was going to be an
adventure! But there wasn't. We had reached the Caw River, where there
were Indians to ferry us across. They were real and red and
terrifying, but I never flinched. If they brought out tomahawks in
midstream, I would be as brave as a pioneer's daughter should be. But
would you believe me, those Indians were as tame as pet canaries, and
just shot us across the river without glancing at us, and held out
their big hands with a grunt, for the coins! That was one of the
greatest disappointments of my life."

All went well with the travelers during those first weeks of the trip,
and no one enjoyed it more than Grandma Keyes after she got over being
homesick. But when they reached the Big Blue river, it was so swollen
that they had to lie by and wait for it to go down, or make rafts to
cross it on. As soon as they stopped traveling Grandma began to fail,
and on the 29th of May, with scarcely any pain, she died. Virginia's
diary says: "It was hard to comfort mother until I persuaded her that
to die out in that lovely country, and with most of your family around
you, was far better than living longer at home. Besides, she might
have died in Springfield. So mother cheered up a little, while all the
party helped us in making the sad preparations. A coffin was made from
a cotton-wood tree, and a young man from home found a gray stone slab
and cut Grandma's name, birthplace, and age on it. A minister of the
party made a simple address, and with the sunlight filtering through
the trees we buried her under an oak-tree and covered the grave with
wild flowers. Then we had to go on our way and leave dear Grandma in
the vast wilderness, which was so hard for mother that for many days I
did not take my rides on Billy, but just stayed with her. But the
landscape was so comfortingly beautiful that at last she cheered up
and began to feel that Grandma was not left alone in the forest, but
was with God. Strange to say, that grave in the woods has never been
disturbed; around it grew up the city