24 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



our cattle were all turned out together, to be herded until 

 about nine o'clock, when they were driven in and tied to 

 the wagons during the night, to be turned loose again as 

 soon as daylight appeared in the east. While herding the 

 cattle I found ripe wild strawberries, not in great abund- 

 ance, as they were just beginning to ripen, but enough to 

 remind me of home, as the strawberry plants were about 

 the only kind of vegetation that had a familiar look — every- 

 thing else being new, strange and unfamiliar. I had come 

 from a thickly timbered country, and this was my first view 

 of a new, wild, prairie land. Everything looked strange to 

 me. The oak, elm and ash trees had somewhat of a familiar 

 look, but they were different — they were not nearly so tall, 

 were more bushy and spreading and altogether of a differ- 

 ent appearance from the same varieties back home. Among 

 the grasses and wild flowers of the prairie, and the weeds 

 growing in the ravines, there was not one that had a famil- 

 iar look excepting the wild strawberries. Years afterward, 

 when I had become a resident of Nebraska and had famil- 

 iarized myself with the trees, shrubs, grasses and other wild 

 plants of the state, I found many that are identical with the 

 same varieties of my home state, but I did not recognize 

 any of them then. 



The next morning, May 29th, 1852, we started on our 

 journey by way of the Overland Trail, bound for Oregon 

 City, Oregon. The road was a splendid one — a hard, well 

 beaten track, showing much travel, and meandering to the 

 northwest over a beautiful gently rolling prairie country, 

 thickly covered with new fresh grass five or six inches high 

 and dotted with little plats of blue and yellow spring flow- 

 ers. The road held to the divide between the little timbered 

 creeks and ravines running east toward the Missouri and 

 the branches bearing south or southwest that were tributary 

 to the Papillion. As our road followed the high land the 

 view was extensive and enchanting, Grander and sublimer 



