But a few months of pioneer life permanently darkened my rosy ideal of the white-covered wagon, the charming picnics by the way, and the paradise at last.

I found many of these adventurers in unfinished houses and racked with malaria; in one case I saw a family of eight, all ill with chills and fever.

The house was half a mile from the spring water on which they depended and from which those best able, from day to day, carried the needed elixir to others suffering with the usual thirst.

Their narrations of all the trials of the long journey were indeed heartrending.
In one case a family of twelve left their comfortable farm in Illinois, much against the earnest protests of the mother; she having ten children, the youngest a baby then in her arms.

All their earthly possessions were stored in three wagons, and the farm which the mother owned was sold before they commenced their long and perilous journey.
There was no reason for going except that the husband had the Western fever.