Wherever they stopped was home for the time being. To bring about this magical transformation of things that mean nothing, into things that mean “home,” was a special gift of Harriet’s, acquired in her own home circle. On this journey into the wilds there was always a gathering of the children for singing and prayer in the little parlor of whatever inn might be their stopping place for the time. On such an evening we can see them sitting around the table in the candle light, the father reading and studying. Catherine writing to Mary at Hartford, and Harriet to her loved friend, Georgiana May, Thomas working at his journal, and Isabella keeping her little record, too, while George is only waiting for a chance to sit up to the table and take his pen. In her letter Harriet is saying this: “As for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my heart still makes occasional visits to the absent ones, visits full of pleasure and full of cause for gratitude to Him who gives us friends. I have thought of you often to-day, my Georgiana.... This afternoon as we were traveling, we struck up ‘Jubilee.’ It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along the rough North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant times, those! Those were blue skies, and that was a beautiful lake, and noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over it. But those we shall look upon ‘nae mair.’ Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not love and leave. Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of life we shall never be called upon to leave. We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us ‘comfort one another and edify one another.’” The next stopping place was Harrisburg. Here they had another homelike evening, gathering in Catherine’s room for a “sing” before going to bed. Then followed a good restful sleep in preparation for the long, slow journey up the Appalachian range that was to begin in the morning. In this part of the pilgrimage they were not so fortunate as they had hitherto been. The horses were poor and the roads very bad. It took them eight days to do what the mail-stage was accustomed to accomplish in two. But good company makes a long journey short. The children’s spirits were equal to the need, though they may have been by this time a little weary. They flung their songs upon the breeze and their tracts upon the traveler whenever they met one, and left a trail of gladness upon the mountain heights.