comforts, parting from relatives and friends, knowing full well that
in this life they never more should look upon their faces--leaving
everything behind to make a new home in the western wilds.

Is was a land of promise that they came to. The virgin soil bore
riotously. There were fruit-trees in the forest that Johnny Appleseed
had planted on his journeyings. The young husband could stand in his
dooryard and kill wild turkeys with his rifle. They fed to loathing
on venison, and squirrels, and all manner of game, and once in a great
while they had the luxury of salt pork. They were well-nourished,
but sometimes they pined for that which was more than mere food. They
hungered for that which should be to the meals' victuals what the flower
is to the plant.

"I whoosh't--I woosh't was so we could hev pie," sighed one such. (Let
us call him Uriah Kinney). I think that sounds as if it were his name.

"Land's sakes!" snapped his wife, exasperated that he should be thinking
of the same thing that she was. "Land's sakes! Haow d' ye s'pose I kin
make a pie when I hain't got e'er a thing to make it aout o'? You gimme
suthirnn to make it aout o', an' you see haow quick--"

"I ain't a-faultinn ye, Mary Ann," interposed Uriah gently. "I know haow
't is. I was on'y tellin' ye. I git I git a kind o' hum'sick sometimes.
'Pears like as if I sh'd feel more resigned like.... Don't ye cry, Mary
Ann. I know, I know. You feel julluk I do 'baout back home, an' all luk
that."

O woman! When the heft of thy intellect is thrown against a problem,
something has got to give. Not long after, Uriah sits down to dinner,
and can hardly ask a blessing, he has to swallow so. A pie is on the
table!

"Gosh, Mary Ann, but this is good!" says he, holding out his hand
for the third piece. "This is lickinn good!" And he celebrates her
achievement far and wide.

"My Mary Ann med me a pie t' other day, was the all-firedest best pie I
ever et."

"Med you what?"

"Med me a pie."

"Pie? Whutch talkinn' baout? Can't git nummore pies naow. Frot 's all
gin aout."

"I golly, she med it just the same. Smartest woman y' ever see." The man
dribbled at the mouth.

"What sh' make it aout o'?"

"Vinegar an' worter, I think she said. I d' know 's I ever et anythinn
I relished julluk that. My Mary Ann, tell yew! She's 'baout's smart 's
they make 'em."

I wish I knew who she really was whom I have called Mary Ann Kinney, she
that made the first vinegar-pie.