366

PIONEER WOMEN OF THE WEST

grubs," are difficult to remove from the soil. A poor man whose means just sufficed to remove his family, and perhaps keep one cow, had often to work out many days before he could afford to hire a " breaking up team," which was a plough constructed for the purpose, and from five to seven yoke of oxen. The wife picked and dried berries in the fall, often in marshes so wet that she was obliged to wear her husband's boots. By the sale of cranberries, she furnished herself with many little comforts she could not otherwise have procured. Flour could always be had at the mills in exchange for this article. By such industry and patient perseverance was the way prepared for the occupation of those lands by an intelligent, enterprising, and ;iOw prosperous people. Not the least of the sufferings of thi primitive settlers arose from sickness, whole families having to pass through the terrible acclimating, often at the same time, and the ravages of disease sometimes leaving desolate the widow and the orphan, far distant from kindred or early friends. At such time the sympathy and kind offices of neighbors were never withheld, even though they might also be suffering and almost destitute. Physicians were few and far apart in tho inland counties, and even when their attendance could be had, their want of knowledge of the local fevers was often the source of mischief rather than good.

A change nas now passed over the face of the country. How progressive has been the expression " the far West!" Many years since it might have meant the western part of New York, as a resident of its metropolis once said she had been " out west" to visit her sister, who lived at Pennyan, in Yates County! A young woman of Skeneateles was engaged many years   her friends being unwilling to let her marry and go so far away as the Ohio ; and when finally the knot was tied, she remained three years under the parental roof before she could be permitted to take so long and perilous a journey. From the Ohio the foot of emigration bore " the far West" farther; it settled for a while in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, then p;issed to Iowa and Wisconsin, and now is wavering beyond the Mississippi in Minnesota, with the cry for Oregon and