58 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



excepting some cases of dysentery, when suddenly Mr. 

 Hosea Ballou was stricken with cholera and died in a few 

 hours. I saw him die, and it was the first death I had ever 

 witnessed. It made a deep impression on my mind. A 

 strong man who only a day or so previous to his death, I 

 had seen going about his work in apparent health, was cut 

 down without warning, leaving a wife and two or three 

 helpless babies. It seemed to me that we were utterly 

 helpless in the presence of such a scourge. A grave was 

 dug by the side of the trail, and the body wrapped in ^ bed 

 quilt as there was no lumber for a coffin, was sorrowfully 

 and silently lowered into it, and without a prayer or a song 

 or the reading of a single passage of Scripture, the grave 

 was filled and the train moved on. God deliver us from 

 such a death and burial. It was better to be broken and 

 killed by a fall from a precipice — to be drowned in the waters 

 of the river or to be killed by the Indians, than to die such 

 a death, and to have such a burial. This cast a dreadful 

 gloom over the whole company, but it was the only death 

 from this cause. There were two or three more light cases 

 of the disease in our train, one of whom was Mr. Knapp, 

 but all speedily recovered. For many weeks, however, 

 there were cases of dysentery, some of which were serious, 

 obstinate, and of long duration. 



Another serious matter, and the cause of a good deal 

 of trouble, and loss, amounting in some cases to the break- 

 ing up of some of the teams, and abandonment of the wa- 

 gons, was the lameness and sickness of some of the oxen. 

 There was little or none of this for the first five or six hun- 

 dred miles, but as we approached the mountains and the 

 roads became very hard, gravelly, and hilly, the oxen, es- 

 pecially the heavy ones, and those used as the wheel teams 

 — that is those next to the wagon — became footsore and 

 lame, in some cases the feet becoming worn through on the 

 bottom so that they would bleed. Our employer, Mr. 



