When  the  Doctor  started  out  from  the  Missouri,  two
hundred  wagons  fell  into  line.  Many  of  the  men  had
property,  yet  it  often  happens  that  such  wanderers  have
little  with  them,  while  they  have  left  nothing  behind.
They  are  wealthy  only  in  children,  and  are  easy  and  af-
fluent, financially,  only  in  expectations.  The  weather,
roads,  fare,  mishaps  —  it  is  all  well  —  nothing  disturbs
the  even  tenor  of  their  prairie  ways,  for  they  are  "  going
West."  Rent,  taxes  and  laws,  markets,  store  bills,  and
the  fashions,  Wall  Street  prices  and  Washington  news,
—  of  all  these  annoyances  of  the  higher  civilization  they
are  in  blissful  ignorance.  At  the  same  time  there  are,
inside  and  outside  of  those  wagons,  the  noble  germs  and
best  elements  of  American  life.  It  was  the  same  when
the  pioneers  took  the  Ohio,  and  cut  up  the  northwest
territory  into  magnificent  states,  and  added  Kentucky
and  Missouri  and  Iowa  and  others  to  the  Union.
