As soon as the first hurry was over, the men of the family converted packing-boxes into shelves for books and utensils, and made divers grotesque-looking stools, with cotton cloth and unpeeled boughs of wood, after the fashion of portable garden-chairs. There was talk of a table to be hewn from a black walnut tree; but as yet the tree was growing, and boards on barrel-tops must answer meanwhile. The salt-cellars were broken when the wagons were pitching down some of the ravines; but the shell of a turtle, which Kate’s brother Thomas had brought among his traps, made a tolerable substitute. The women missed the smooth, white table-cloths, and the orderly arrangement of dishes, to which they had been accustomed; but they agreed with the men, that no food had ever tasted so good as the corn-cakes, venison, and wild game cooked in that humble cabin, where they mutually served each other in love. Then the unpacking of the deep trunks and boxes, bringing to light memorials of old places and dear friends, was a pleasure which only the far-off emigrant from home may realize. Some mutual secrets had been kept, which made little sunny ripples of surprise in their quiet stream of life. Alice’s father and mother had packed their photograph likenesses in Katie’s trunk, with a charge that they should not be opened till they were settled in their new home. Katie had pressed mosses and ferns from the old well near Uncle May’s garden-gate. They were twined with pendant blossoms from the old elm, and woven into a garland round the words, “From the well, whose waters Katie and Allie drank in childhood, and from the old elm-tree from whose boughs they used to swing.” She had framed it neatly with cones, gathered in a pine grove, where they had walked together many an hour. These souvenirs of the dear old home so stirred the deep fountains of feeling in her cousin’s soul, that she burst into tears. But Katie soon made her laugh, by exhibiting a crockery bear, which little Georgy had packed among the things, to remind them of the living bear he expected to receive from Kansas. Alice said she had a little secret too. She retreated to her division of the room, and brought forth a pencil-drawing of the house where Katie was born, and where her mother had always lived; and across the green lane was Uncle May’s house, with the old well shaded by the elm. She had a talent for drawing, and the dear familiar scene was brought faithfully before the eye, though a little idealized by the softness of the shading.