I was tired, hungry and sleepy, and perhaps cross, for this was the end of a long, toilsome journey through swamps and dense forests. While I stood there, scratching my mosquito bites, with no very pleasant countenance, father and mother crawled out and stretched their weary limbs. Mr. Duncan's people welcomed us, as they did all emigrants and travelers, no matter when or how they came. Very soon after, we were gathered into the one square room of the house and I was allowed to absorb a bowl of bread and milk. Father and mother and the teamster also had their supper of corn bread and butter, washed down with sage tea, eating with an appetite, which everybody carried about in those days of scanty fare and hardship. As soon as the sun disappeared, mother prepared to put me to bed, at which I kicked up a small row, because I did not wish to be thus disposed of without my supper, and I dimly remember that, at last, she managed to convince me that bread and milk was supper in that house, after which, very little force was necessary to put my tired frame to rest for the night. Late next morning, when the woods were alive with the songs of birds, mother succeeded in getting my eyes open again, and took me directly from the bed out into the sunshine, sat me down in the middle of the brook, where the sparkling water was hardly knee deep, and then I had a good time, kicking and splashing and allowing the minnows to nibble my toes. Then I was considered washed and ready for dressing and breakfast. I am told we were at Esquire Duncan's about a week, of which I remember nothing further, but afterwards can recall another log house, about two miles north of Mr. Duncan's, in the edge of the prairie, with its vast, open green expanse on the east, and an impenetrable forest on the west. Abner Calhoun, who was the owner of the house, had come, from Ohio, in advance of us a few weeks, and had just completed it, and nearly built a log stable, all but the door and the "chinking." Mr. Calhoun being a very hospitable settler, allowed us, (who were of the tender-foot class,) to occupy his house, while he, with a family of wife and three children, moved into the unfinished barn. Of the Calhoun's, there was one boy about my own age, one younger and one older. Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun were just plowing up a bit of the prairie near the house, for immediate cultivation. The long, wooden mold board plow, with the end of its beam resting upon the axle of a lumber wagon, or rather the front wheels, drawn by two pairs of small oxen and one pair of young heifers, I well remember. In the morning, while Mrs. Calhoun busied herself in washing up the scanty assortment of breakfast dishes, and putting the house in order for the day, Mr. Calhoun would gather his miscellaneous team and hitch them to the plow. By that time his wife was ready for work, and placing herself between the plow handles, the business of the day commenced.