No minister of the Gospel was within call, so, after the coffin was
placed upon the bars above the open grave, and the lid removed, a
friend who had crossed the plains with the dead, offered a prayer, and
all the listeners said, "Amen."
I might not have remembered all these things, if Georgia and I had not
watched over that grave, when all others seemed to have forgotten it.
As we brought brush to cover it, in order to keep the cattle from
dusting themselves in the loose earth, we talked matters over, and felt
as though that mother's grave had been bequeathed to us. Grandma had
instructed us that the graveyard is "God's acre," and that it is a sin
to live near and not tend it. Still, no matter how often we chased the
cattle away, they would return. We could not make them understand that
their old resting-place had become sacred ground.
About the middle of October, 1848, the last of the volunteers were
mustered out of service, and shortly thereafter the excess of army
stores were condemned and sold. Ex-soldiers had preference over
settlers, and could buy the goods at Government rates, plus a small
cost of transportation to the Pacific coast. Grandma profited by the
good-will of those whom she had befriended. They stocked her store-room
with salt pork, flour, rice, coffee, sugar, ship-bread, dried fruit,
and camp condiments at a nominal figure above what they themselves paid
for them.
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