After we had put the horses in the barn we had dinner and I heard the story of the girls’ odd names.  The mother is one of those “comfy,” fat little women who remain happy and bubbling with fun in spite of hard knocks.  I had already fallen in love with Regalia, she is so jolly and unaffected, so fat and so plain.  Sedalia has a veneer of most uncomfortable refinement.  She was shocked because Gale ate all the roast she wanted, and if I had been very sensitive I would have been in tears, because I ate a helping more than Gale did.

But about the names.  It seemed that “Mis’ Lane” married quite young, was an orphan, and had no one to tell her things she should have known.  She lived in Missouri, but about a year after her marriage the young couple started overland for the West.  It was in November, and one night when they had reached the plains a real blue blizzard struck them.  “Mis’ Lane” had been in pain all day and soon she knew what was the matter.  They were alone and it was a day’s travel back to the last house.  The team had given out and the wind and sleet were seeing which could do the most meanness.  At last the poor man got a fire started and a wagon sheet stretched in such a manner that it kept off the sleet.  He fixed a bed under the poor shelter and did all he could to keep the fire from blowing away, and there, a few hours later, a little girl baby was born.  They melted sleet in the frying-pan to get water to wash it.  “Mis’ Lane” kept feeling no better fast, and about the time they got the poor baby dressed a second little one came.

That she told me herself is proof she didn’t die, I guess, but it is right hard to believe she didn’t.  Luckily the fire lasted until the babies were dressed and the mother began to feel better, for there was no wood.  Soon the wind stopped and the snow fell steadily.  It was warmer, and the whole family snuggled up under the wagon sheet and slept.

Mr. Lane is a powerful good husband.  He waited two whole days for his wife to gain strength before he resumed the journey, and on the third morning he actually carried her to the wagon.  Just think of it!  Could more be asked of any man?

Every turn of the wheels made poor “Mis’ Lane” more homesick.  Like Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, she had a taste for geographical names, and “Mis’ Lane” is very loyal, so she wanted to call the little first-born “Missouri.”  Mr. Lane said she might, but that if she did he would call the other one “Arkansas.”  Sometimes homesickness would almost master her.  She would hug up the little red baby and murmur “Missouri,” and then daddy would growl playfully to “Arkansas.”  It went on that way for a long time and at last she remembered that Sedalia was in Missouri, so she felt glad and really named the older baby “Sedalia.”  But she could think of nothing to match the name and was in constant fear the father would name the other baby “Little Rock.”

For three years poor Gale was just “t’other one.”  Then the Lanes went to Green River where some lodge was having a parade.  They were watching the drill when a “bystander that was standing by” said something about the “fine regalia.”  Instantly “Mis’ Lane” thought of her unnamed child; so since that time Gale has had a name.