4

Iowa did not look much like a prairie country from where I stood.  The Iowa shore towered above the town of Dubuque, clothed with woods to the top, and looking more like York State than anything I had seen since I had taken the schooner at Buffalo to come up the Lakes.  I lay that night, unable to sleep.  For one thing, I needed to be wakeful, lest some of the motley crowd of movers might take a fancy to my cattle.  I was learning by experience how to take care of myself and mine; besides, I wanted to be awake early so as to take passage by ferry-boat “before soon” as the Hoosiers say, in the morning.

That April morning was still only a gray dawn when I drove down to the ferry, without stopping for my breakfast.  A few others of those who looked forward to a rush for the boat had got there ahead of me, and we waited in line.  I saw that I should have to go on the second trip rather than the first, but movers can not be impatient, and the driving of cattle cures a person of being in a hurry; so I was in no great taking because of this little delay.  As I sat there in my wagon, a black-bearded, scholarly-looking man stepped up and spoke to me.

“Going across?” he asked.

“As soon as the boat will take me,” I said.

“Heavy loaded?” he asked.  “Have you room for a passenger?”

“I guess I can accommodate you,” I answered.  “Climb in.”

“It isn’t for myself I’m asking,” he said.  “There’s a lady here that wants to ride in a covered wagon, and sit back where she can’t see the water.  It makes her dizzy—­and scares her awfully; can you take her?”

“If she can ride back there on the bed,” said I.

He peeped in, and said that this was the very place for her.  She could lie down and cover up her head and never know she was crossing the river at all.  In a minute, and while it was still twilight, just as the ferry-boat came to the landing, he returned with the lady.  She was dressed in some brown fabric, and wore a thick veil over her face; but as she climbed in I saw that she had yellow hair and bright eyes and lips; and that she was trembling so that her hands shook as she took hold of the wagon-bow, and her voice quivered as she thanked me, in low tones.  The man with the black beard pressed her hand as he left her.  He offered me a dollar for her passage; but I called his attention to the fact that it would cost only two shillings more for me to cross with her than if I went alone, and refused to take more.

“There are a good many rough fellows,” said he, “at these ferries, that make it unpleasant for a lady, sometimes—­”

“Not when she’s with me,” I said.

He looked at me sharply, as if surprised that I was not so green as I looked—­though I was pretty verdant.  Anyhow, he said, if I should be asked if any one was with me, it would save her from being scared if I would say that I was alone—­she was the most timid woman in the world.