96 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



road and tender to us onions, turnips and other strange vege- 

 tables. The country was getting more thickly settled, and soon 

 the sight of a village greeted us. This was Battle Creek, and 

 in the heart of it we made our corral. We hardly halted be- 

 fore we were surrounded by men, women and children, dogs, 

 pigs and chickens, the last hardly realizing their danger in 

 coming so close to the itching palms of the ox-drivers. The 

 children had an eye to business and peddled all manner of 

 things among us ; while the men went about, tempting our in- 

 nocent men, even as did the disguised one of old. They had 

 the assurance to think that our noble fellows would trade ox- 

 yokes, bows, chains and other things belonging to our 

 employers, for whisky, beer, poultry, vegetables and other of 

 life's necessaries. Some of our men, rather than see the disap- 

 pointment generated by refusal, made sacrifices resulting in 

 the coveted exchange; and, to make the Mormons feel more at 

 ease, even went so far as to drink the liquor at once in 

 their presence, and soon were laughing and making merry. 



One of our Mormon friends invited me to dine with him. I 

 bought the invitation with a gun-barrel I picked up on the 

 Platte. At the hour named I repaired to his house, a one- 

 roomed " adobe," which answered the purpose of parlor, bed- 

 room and kitchen. He had but one wife and two children, 

 with whom I was soon seated at table. After grace was said 

 the man of the house took a quid from his mouth and uttered 

 the words " pile in," when we all felt at our ease. I " piled in," 

 much to the disgust, I fear, of my host, who saw his gun-bar- 

 rel vanishing in a dissolving view. This mode of dining was 

 quite a change from sitting on the ground, eating from a com- 

 mon plate, but I soon got used to it. What we had were not 

 luxuries, but it was relished. There were beef, potatoes, bis- 

 cuits and butter; and the whole punctuated with a full stop, in 

 the guise of a disk of good, thick, pumpkin pie ! It really did 

 me good to sit in the warmth of an old-fashioned fire-place. 



