"From time to time, companies of men either volunteered or were detailed from the journeying camps, and, by going off the route, obtained jobs of work for which they received food in payment, to meet the necessities of those who were only partially supplied, and also grain for the teams. "As we passed through a town on the Des Moines river, the inhabitants manifested as much curiosity as though they were viewing a traveling menagerie of wild animals. Their levity and apparent heartlessness was, to me, proof of profound ignorance. How little did those people comprehend our movement, and the results the Almighty had in view. "On the 2d of March we again moved forward--and here I will transcribe from my journal: 'March 3d--Our encampment this night may truly be recorded as a miracle, performed on natural, and yet peculiar principles--a city reared in a few hours, and everything in operation that actual living required, and many additional things, which, if not extravagancies, were certainly convenient. The next day, great numbers of the people of the adjacent country were to be seen patrolling the nameless streets of our anonymous city, with astonishment visible in their countenances. In the evening, Sister Markham and I took a stroll abroad, and in the absence of names to the streets, and numbers to the tents, we lost our way, and had to procure a guide to pilot us home.' "At this point Brother Markham exchanged our buggy for a lumber wagon, and in performing an act of generosity to others, so filled it as to give Sister M. and me barely room to sit in front. And when we started again, Sister M. and I were seated on a chest with brass-kettle and soap-box for our footstools, and were happy in being as comfortably situated as we were; and well we might be, for many of our sisters walked all day, rain or shine, and at night prepared suppers for their families, with no sheltering tents; and then made their beds in and under wagons that contained their earthly all. How frequently, with intense sympathy and admiration, I watched the mother, when, forgetful of her own fatigue and destitution, she took unwearied pains to fix up, in the most palatable form, the allotted portion of food, and as she dealt it out was cheering the hearts of her homeless children, while, as I truly believed, her own was lifted to God in fervent prayer that their lives might be preserved, and, above all, that they might honor him in the religion for which she was an exile from the home once sacred to her, for the sake of those precious ones that God had committed to her care. We were living on rations--our leaders having counseled that arrangement, to prevent an improvident use of provision that would result in extreme destitution.