Everything was fine and new when we left Westport.  Aunt Rachel had woven two little woolen dresses for me and of course, I must have had other things to wear, but six months is a long while and the steady travel was hard on everything, harder than Mother had anticipated.  Nearly everyone was ragged, but I must have been raggeder than the rest for one day Mrs. Burnett, the wife of Peter H., called me to her tent and measuring off a strip of calico said: "Tuck this under your arm Lottie, and say nothing about it to anyone else, but tell your mother to make you an apron of it."  The admonition to "say nothing about it" was probably a gentle little joke on the part of Mrs. Burnett, for she knew very well that I never said a word to anyone unless I was forced to.  It was a nice piece of calico, blue with pretty little figures.

 
     A number of our women had started out with the idea of taking care of their complexions and had worn big sun bonnets.  Some of them still wore them, but they had lost their starch.  The wooden "splits" were lost or broken so that the old bonnets tilted grotesquely to one side or the other or hung down over their eyes like a beard on a broachy cow.  Calico dresses were patched and even the patches were patched.  We children were all in tatters, but none of us seemed to mind it.  We were going to a new country, what was a dress or two to us?  Even the older ones were concerned with more important things, winter was almost upon us.