en. They were light and active, and overtook team
after team of laboring steers every day I drove them. Furthermore, they
gave me milk. I fed them well, worked them rather lightly, and by
putting the new milk in a churn I bought at Mineral Point, I found that
the motion of the wagon would bring the butter as well as any churning.
I had cream for my coffee, butter for my bread, milk for my mush, and
lived high. A good deal of fun was poked at me about my team of cows;
but people were always glad to camp with me and share my fare.

Economically, our cows ought to be made to do a good deal of the work of
the farms. I have always believed this; but now a German expert has
proved it. I read about it the other day in a bulletin put out by the
Agricultural Department; but I proved it in Vandemark Township before
the man was born that wrote the bulletin. If not pushed too hard, cows
will work and give almost as much milk as if not worked at all. This
statement of course won't apply to the fancy cows which are high-power
milk machines, and need to be packed in cotton, and kept in satin-lined
stalls; but to such cows as farmers have, and always will have, it
does apply.

I was sorry to leave the Prestons, they were such whole-souled, earnest
people; and before I did leave them I was a full-fledged Abolitionist
so far as belief was concerned. I never did become active, however, in
spiriting slaves from one station to another of the U.G. Railway.

I drove out to the highway, and turning my prow to the west, I joined
again in the stream of people swarming westward. The tide had swollen in
the week during which I had laid by at the Prestons'. The road was
rutted, poached deep where wet and beaten hard where dry, or pulverized
into dust by the stream of emigration. Here we went, oxen, cows, mules,
horses; coaches, carriages, blue jeans, corduroys, rags, tatters, silks,
satins, caps, tall hats, poverty, riches; speculators, missionaries,
land-hunters, merchants; criminals escaping from justice; couples
fleeing from the law; families seeking homes; the wrecks of homes
seeking secrecy; gold-seekers bearing southwest to the Overland Trail;
politicians looking for places in which to win fame and fortune; editors
hunting opportunities for founding newspapers; adventurers on their way
to everywhere; lawyers with a few books; Abolitionists going to the
Border War; innocent-looking outfits carrying fugitive slaves; officers
hunting escaped n