CONCERNING MYSELF
My part of the outfit consisted of the clothes I wore, for I am ashamed to say that I did not own a second coat which would have been presentable in any company. Therefore I did not allow myself to be troubled when the women complained long and bitterly because they had so little with which to work or make themselves comfortable, and for the only time in my life it did seem as if my poverty was really a blessing.
I lived in a perfect fever of excitement during the three weeks we were making ready for the voyage, and on the evening before the eventful day I was so wrought up in my mind that to sleep was an impossibility. From the time I laid myself down on my bed in Master Rouse's stable, until the sun rose, I did not close my eyes in slumber; then I acted as if I had never seen a horse or harness before, for when Ben Cushing called on me to aid him in putting the animals to the pole, my hands trembled so that I could not fasten a buckle, let alone arrange the straps to his liking.
Ben is a careful driver and one who ever looks after the welfare of his beasts. To him a strap too long or too short, a buckle out of place or liable to break, is almost the same as a sin.
I need not have allowed myself to be worked up to such an extent, however, for the first part of our journey was nothing more nor less than pleasure. Half a dozen young girls, on horseback, set off with us, expecting to ride as far as the Long Plain, which is six miles out from Mattapoisett, and the entire population, as it appeared to me, had turned out to see us get under way with that long Conestoga wagon covered with canvas, on the sides of which had been painted, "To the Ohio Country."