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We stopped for dinner just before we came to the prettiest part, by the side of a swiftly running stream, Turnback River. We forded it, through the shallow water all rippling and sparkling.
There was another clear stream to cross before we came to Everton at 5 o’clock. Here we stopped to get the horses shod but there was not time to shoe them all today, so we camped by a creek in the edge of town for over Sunday.
Sunday, August 26
A day for writing, reading, sleeping. We let the children wade in the shallow creek, within our sight. I spent almost the whole time writing to the home folks about the country since Fort Scott and these hills and woods.
August 21
Out of camp at 7:10. We like this country. A man tried to get us to settle just across the road from him, said we could buy that 40 for $700. It was good land.
We forded Little Sock River and came through Ash Grove, a lively little town noted for its lime kiln. Two new brick blocks are going up on Main Street.
Camped 12 miles from Springfield. Manly was unhitching the team when a man with his wife and daughter in a covered wagon drove up and wanted to know where he could water his mules. They live 14 miles east of Springfield in Henderson County and were going to visit the woman’s brother in Ash Grove.
After we had talked awhile they said they would like to camp by us if we could sell them a little meat to cook. They had not intended to camp and had brought nothing to eat. We let them have some meat and they used our camp stove, so we got quite well acquainted. They are good, friendly folks. Their name is Davis. After the chores were done they brought over a large watermelon and we called the Cooleys to come, and all of us ate the whole big melon. You can buy a 20lb watermelon here for 5 cents.
August 28
Left camp at 6:28. Good road from Ash Grove, all the way to Springfield, not hilly nor very stony. This is the Ozark plateau and the country looks much like prairie country though there are groves and timber always along the streams.
Arrived in Springfield at 9:25. It is a thriving city with fine houses and four business blocks stand around a town square. The stores are well stocked and busy. Manly hitched the horses and we bought shoes for Rose and myself, a calico dress for me, and a new hat for Manly. It did not take much time and we drove right along through the city. We were out of it before noon. It has 21,850 inhabitants, and is the nicest city we have seen yet. It is simply grand.
We could see two straight miles down Walnut street, a very little down grade, with large shade trees on each side, large handsome residences, and the pavement as smooth and clean as can be.
Five miles east of Springfield is Jones Spring. The water is clear as glass, and it comes pouring out of a cave in a ledge of rock. At its mouth the cave is 4 feet high and 10 feet wide, and nobody knows how far back it goes. Manly and Mr. Cooley went quite a distance back into it and threw stones as far as they could throw them, and the stones fell plunk into water far back in the dark.
The water pours out of the cave 14 inches deep and runs away over the stones among the trees, a lively little creek.
We were told that 7 miles southeast of Jones spring a stream comes out of a cave so large that you can keep rowing a boat back into it for half a day.
After crossing Pierson’s Creek we met, one day after another, 10 emigrant wagons leaving Missouri. We camped in the edge of Henderson, a little inland town, on the bank of a spring brook.
August 29
Left camp at 7:10. We are driving along a lively road through the woods, we are shaded by oak trees. The farther we go, the more we like this country. Parts of Nebraska and Kansas are well enough but Missouri is simply glorious. There Manly interrupted me to say, “This is beautiful country.”
The road goes up hill and down, and it is rutted and dusty and stony but every turn of the wheels changes our view of the woods and the hills. The sky seems lower here, and it is the softest blue. The distances and the valleys are blue whenever you can see them. It is a drowsy country that makes you feel wide awake and alive but somehow contented.
We went through a little station on the railroad and a few miles farther on we came to a fruit farm of 400 acres. A company owns it. There are 26,000 little young trees already set out in rows striping the curves of the land, and the whole 400 acres will be planted as soon as possible. Acres of strawberries and other small fruit are in bearing. We stopped to look our fill of the sight and Manly fell into conversation with some of the company’s men. They told him of a 40 he can buy for $400, all cleared and into grass except five acres of woods, and with a good ever-flowing spring, a comfortable log house and a barn.
We drove through Seymour in the late afternoon. The Main Streets of towns here are built around open squar
es, with the hitching posts surrounding the square. In the office of the Seymour paper, the Enterprise, a girl was setting type. A man spoke to us, who had lived years in Dakota, near Sioux Falls, he has a brother living there now. He is farming near Seymour. He said the climate here can’t be beat, we never will want to leave these hills, but it will take us some time to get used to the stones.
Oh no, we are not out of the world nor behind the times here in the Ozarks. Why, even the cows know ‘the latest’. Two of them feeding along the road were playing Ta-ra-ra Boom! de-ay! The little cow’s bell rang Ta-ra-ra, then the bigger cow’s bell clanged, Boom! de-ay. I said, “What is that tune they are playing?” and we listened. It was as plain as could be, tones and time and all, and so comical. We drove on singing Ta-ra-ra Boom! de-ay! along the road.
We passed several springs and crossed some little brooks. The fences are snake fences of split logs and all along them, in the corners, fruit grows wild. There are masses of blackberries, and seedling peaches and plums and cherries, and luscious-looking fruits ripening in little trees that I don’t know,* a lavishness of fruit growing wild. It seems to be free for the taking.
= These were wild persimmons and pawpaws. R.W.L.
We could not reach Mansfield today. Camped by a spring 10½ miles short of it. In no time at all Rose and I filled a quart pail with big juicy blackberries. They are growing wild in big patches in the woods, ripening and falling off and wasting.
Six more emigrant wagons camped around the spring before dark. Seasoned oak wood, sawed, split and delivered and corded, brings $1 a cord here.
August 30, 1894
Hitched up and going at 7:10. The road is rough and rocky through the ravines but not so bad between them and there are trees all the way.
