A few minutes afterward, you meet the family. A small, light wagon, easily dragged through sloughs and heavy roads, is covered with a white cotton cloth, and drawn, by either two yokes of oxen, or a pair of lean horses. A "patch-work" quilt is sometimes stretched across the flimsy covering, as a guard against the sun and rain. Within this vehicle are stowed all the emigrant's household goods, and still, it is not overloaded. There is usually a large chest, containing the wardrobe of the family, with such small articles as are liable to loss, and the little store of money. This is always in silver, for the pioneer is no judge of gold, and, on the frontier, paper has but little exchangeable value. There are then two light bedsteads--one "a trundle-bed"--a few plain chairs, most of them tied on behind and at the sides; three or four stools, domestic manufacture; a set of tent-poles and a few pots and pans. On these are piled the "beds and bedding," tied in large bundles, and stowed in such manner as to make convenient room for the children who are too young to walk. In the front end of the wagon, sits the mother of the family: and, peering over her head and shoulders, leaning out at her side, or gazing under the edge of the cotton-covering, are numerous flaxen heads, which you find it difficult to count while you ride past. There are altogether too many of them, you think, for a man no older than the one you met, a while ago; and you, perhaps, conjecture that the youthful-looking woman has adopted some of her dead sister's children, or, perchance, some of her brothers and sisters themselves. But you are mistaken, they are all her offspring, and the father of every one of them is the stoop-shouldered man you saw ahead. If you look closely, you will observe that the mother, who is driving, holds the reins with one hand, while, on the other arm, she supports an infant not _more_ than six months old. It was for the advent of this little stranger, that they delayed their emigration: and they set out while it was very young, for fear of the approach of its successor. If they waited for their youngest child to attain a year of age, they would never "move," until they would be too old to make another "clearing."