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UNIX Shell programming 3rd Edition Stephen Kochan
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Stephen Kochan, Patrick Wood
ISBN(s): 9780768663273, 076866327X
Edition: 3
File Details: PDF, 2.87 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english
Stephen G. Kochan
Patrick Wood

Unix Shell
Programming
Third Edition

800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240

Unix Shell Programming, Third Edition Acquisitions Editor
Katie Purdum
Copyright © 2003 by Sams Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a Development Editor
retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, Scott Meyers
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission
from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the Managing Editor
use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution Charlotte Clapp
has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and
author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any Copy Editor
liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information Geneil Breeze
contained herein.
Indexer
International Standard Book Number: 0-672-32490-3 Erika Millen
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002115932
Proofreader
Printed in the United States of America Jessica McCarty

First Printing: March 2003

Technical Editor
06 05 4 Michael Watson

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All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or
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Contents at a Glance

1 Introduction .................................................................................................1
2 A Quick Review of the Basics .......................................................................5
3 What Is the Shell?.......................................................................................41
4 Tools of the Trade .......................................................................................53
5 And Away We Go........................................................................................99
6 Can I Quote You on That? .......................................................................115
7 Passing Arguments....................................................................................133
8 Decisions, Decisions .................................................................................145
9 ‘Round and ‘Round She Goes...................................................................183
10 Reading and Printing Data .......................................................................209
11 Your Environment ....................................................................................235
12 More on Parameters..................................................................................267
13 Loose Ends ................................................................................................287
14 Rolo Revisited ...........................................................................................307
15 Interactive and Nonstandard Shell Features ............................................325
A Shell Summary..........................................................................................363
B For More Information...............................................................................403
Index .........................................................................................................407
Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 A Quick Review of the Basics 5

Some Basic Commands ...............................................................................5
Displaying the Date and Time:
The date Command .........................................................................5
Finding Out Who’s Logged In: The who Command ........................5
Echoing Characters: The echo Command .........................................6
Working with Files .......................................................................................6
Listing Files: The ls Command ..........................................................7
Displaying the Contents of a File: The cat Command .....................7
Counting the Number of Words in a File: The wc Command .........8
Command Options ............................................................................8
Making a Copy of a File: The cp Command .....................................9
Renaming a File: The mv Command .................................................9
Removing a File: The rm Command ...............................................10
Working with Directories ..........................................................................10
The Home Directory and Pathnames ..............................................11
Displaying Your Working Directory: The pwd Command ..............12
Changing Directories: The cd Command ........................................13
More on the ls Command ...............................................................16
Creating a Directory: The mkdir Command ...................................18
Copying a File from One Directory to Another ..............................18
Moving Files Between Directories ....................................................19
Linking Files: The ln Command ......................................................20
Removing a Directory: The rmdir Command .................................24
Filename Substitution ................................................................................24
The Asterisk ......................................................................................24
Matching Single Characters .............................................................26
Standard Input/Output and I/O Redirection ............................................28
Standard Input and Standard Output ..............................................28
Output Redirection ..........................................................................30
Input Redirection .............................................................................32
 Pipes ...........................................................................................................33
Filters ................................................................................................35
Standard Error ............................................................................................35
More on Commands .................................................................................36
Typing More Than One Command on a Line ................................36
Sending a Command to the Background ........................................36
The ps Command .............................................................................37
Command Summary .................................................................................38
Exercises .....................................................................................................38

3 What Is the Shell? 41

The Kernel and the Utilities ......................................................................41
The Login Shell ..........................................................................................42
Typing Commands to the Shell ................................................................45
The Shell’s Responsibilities ........................................................................46
Program Execution ...........................................................................46
Variable and Filename Substitution .................................................48
I/O Redirection .................................................................................49
Pipeline Hookup ...............................................................................51
Environment Control .......................................................................51
Interpreted Programming Language ................................................52

4 Tools of the Trade 53

Regular Expressions ...................................................................................53
Matching Any Character: The Period (.) .........................................54
Matching the Beginning of the Line: The Caret (^) ........................55
Matching the End of the Line: The Dollar Sign ($) ........................55
Matching a Choice of Characters: The [...] Construct ....................57
Matching Zero or More Characters: The Asterisk (*) .......................59
Matching a Precise Number of Characters: \{...\} ...........................62
Saving Matched Characters: \(...\) ..................................................64
cut ..............................................................................................................67
The -d and -f Options ......................................................................69
paste ...........................................................................................................72
The -d Option ...................................................................................73
The -s Option ...................................................................................74
sed ..............................................................................................................74
The -n Option ..................................................................................76
Deleting Lines ...................................................................................77
vi UNIX SHELL PROGRAMMING

tr .................................................................................................................78
The -s Option ...................................................................................81
The –d Option ..................................................................................82
grep ............................................................................................................83
Regular Expressions and grep ..........................................................86
The -v Option ...................................................................................87
The -l Option ....................................................................................88
The -n Option ..................................................................................89
sort .............................................................................................................89
The -u Option ...................................................................................90
The -r Option ...................................................................................90
The -o Option ...................................................................................90
The -n Option ..................................................................................91
Skipping Fields .................................................................................92
The -t Option ...................................................................................92
Other Options ..................................................................................93
uniq ............................................................................................................94
The -d Option ...................................................................................95
Other Options ..................................................................................96
Exercises .....................................................................................................97

5 And Away We Go 99
Command Files ..........................................................................................99
Comments ......................................................................................102
Variables ...................................................................................................103
Displaying the Values of Variables .................................................104
The Null Value ................................................................................107
Filename Substitution and Variables .............................................108
The ${variable} Construct ..............................................................110
Built-in Integer Arithmetic ......................................................................110
Exercises ...................................................................................................112

6 Can I Quote You on That? 115

The Single Quote .....................................................................................115
The Double Quote ...................................................................................119
The Backslash ..........................................................................................121
Using the Backslash for Continuing Lines ....................................122
The Backslash Inside Double Quotes .............................................123
 Contents vii

Command Substitution ...........................................................................124

The Back Quote ..............................................................................124
The $(...) Construct ........................................................................125
The expr Command .......................................................................129
Exercises ...................................................................................................131

7 Passing Arguments 133

The $# Variable ..............................................................................134
The $* Variable ...............................................................................135
A Program to Look Up Someone in the Phone Book ....................136
A Program to Add Someone to the Phone Book ...........................138
A Program to Remove Someone from the Phone Book ................139
${n} .................................................................................................141
The shift Command ................................................................................141
Exercises ...................................................................................................143

8 Decisions, Decisions 145

Exit Status ................................................................................................145
The $? Variable ...............................................................................146
The test Command ..................................................................................149
String Operators .............................................................................150
An Alternative Format for test .......................................................154
Integer Operators ...........................................................................155
File Operators .................................................................................157
The Logical Negation Operator ! ...................................................158
The Logical AND Operator –a ........................................................158
Parentheses .....................................................................................159
The Logical OR Operator –o ...........................................................159
The else Construct ...................................................................................160
The exit Command .................................................................................162
A Second Look at the rem Program ...............................................163
The elif Construct ....................................................................................164
Yet Another Version of rem ...........................................................167
The case Command .................................................................................169
Special Pattern Matching Characters .............................................171
The -x Option for Debugging Programs ........................................173
Back to the case ..............................................................................175
The Null Command : ..............................................................................177
The && and || Constructs ........................................................................177
Exercises ...................................................................................................180
viii UNIX SHELL PROGRAMMING

9 ’Round and ’Round She Goes 183

The for Command ...................................................................................183
The $@ Variable ..............................................................................187
The for Without the List ................................................................188
The while Command .....................................................................189
The until Command ................................................................................191
More on Loops .........................................................................................196
Breaking Out of a Loop ..................................................................196
Skipping the Remaining Commands in a Loop ............................198
Executing a Loop in the Background ............................................199
I/O Redirection on a Loop .............................................................199
Piping Data Into and Out of a Loop ..............................................200
Typing a Loop on One Line ...........................................................200
The getopts Command ............................................................................201
Exercises ...................................................................................................205

10 Reading and Printing Data 209

The read Command .................................................................................209
A Program to Copy Files ................................................................209
Special echo Escape Characters ......................................................212
An Improved Version of mycp .......................................................212
A Final Version of mycp .................................................................214
A Menu-Driven Phone Program ....................................................219
The $$ Variable and Temporary Files ............................................224
The Exit Status from read ...............................................................225
The printf Command ..............................................................................228
Exercises ...................................................................................................233

11 Your Environment 235

Local Variables .........................................................................................235
Subshells .........................................................................................236
Exported Variables ...................................................................................237
export -p .........................................................................................241
PS1 and PS2 .............................................................................................241
HOME, James ...........................................................................................242
Your PATH ................................................................................................243
Your Current Directory ............................................................................251
CDPATH ..........................................................................................252
 Contents ix

More on Subshells ...................................................................................253

The . Command .............................................................................254
The exec Command .......................................................................257
The (...) and { ...; } Constructs ........................................................258
Another Way to Pass Variables to a Subshell .................................262
Your .profile File ......................................................................................262
The TERM Variable ..................................................................................264
The TZ Variable ........................................................................................264
Exercises ...................................................................................................265

12 More on Parameters 267

Parameter Substitution ............................................................................267
${parameter} ...................................................................................268
${parameter:-value} ........................................................................268
${parameter:=value} ........................................................................269
${parameter:?value} ........................................................................270
${parameter:+value} ........................................................................270
Pattern Matching Constructs .........................................................270
${#variable} .....................................................................................273
The $0 Variable ........................................................................................273
The set Command ...................................................................................274
The -x Option .................................................................................274
set with No Arguments ..................................................................275
Using set to Reassign Positional Parameters ..................................276
The -- Option ..................................................................................277
Other Options to set ......................................................................280
The IFS Variable .......................................................................................280
The readonly Command .........................................................................283
The unset Command ...............................................................................284
Exercises ...................................................................................................284

13 Loose Ends 287

The eval Command .................................................................................287
The wait Command .................................................................................289
The $! Variable ...............................................................................290
The trap Command .................................................................................290
trap with No Arguments ................................................................292
Ignoring Signals ..............................................................................292
Resetting Traps ...............................................................................293
x UNIX SHELL PROGRAMMING

More on I/O .............................................................................................293

<&- and >&- ....................................................................................295
Inline Input Redirection ................................................................295
Shell Archives .................................................................................297
Functions .................................................................................................301
Removing a Function Definition ...................................................304
The return Command ....................................................................304
The type Command ................................................................................305
Exercises ...................................................................................................305

14 Rolo Revisited 307

Design Considerations ............................................................................307
rolo ...........................................................................................................308
add ...........................................................................................................311
lu ...............................................................................................................312
display ......................................................................................................313
rem ...........................................................................................................314
change ......................................................................................................316
listall ........................................................................................................318
Sample Output .........................................................................................319
Exercises ...................................................................................................323

15 Interactive and Nonstandard Shell Features 325

Getting the Right Shell ............................................................................326
The ENV File ............................................................................................326
Command-Line Editing ...........................................................................327
Command History ...................................................................................327
The vi Line Edit Mode .............................................................................328
Accessing Commands from Your History ......................................330
The Line Edit Mode .................................................................................332
Accessing Commands from Your History ......................................334
Other Ways to Access Your History .........................................................336
The history Command ...................................................................336
The fc Command ...........................................................................337
The r Command .............................................................................338
Functions .................................................................................................339
Local Variables ................................................................................339
Automatically Loaded Functions ...................................................340
 Contents xi

Integer Arithmetic ...................................................................................340

Integer Types ..................................................................................341
Numbers in Different Bases ...........................................................342
The alias Command ................................................................................343
Removing Aliases ...........................................................................346
Arrays .......................................................................................................346
Job Control ..............................................................................................352
Stopped Jobs and the fg and bg Commands .................................353
The Restricted Shell rsh ...........................................................................355
Miscellaneous Features ............................................................................357
Other Features of the cd Command ..............................................357
Tilde Substitution ...........................................................................357
Order of Search ...............................................................................359
Compatibility Summary ..........................................................................359
Exercises ...................................................................................................360

A Shell Summary 363

Startup ......................................................................................................363
Commands ..............................................................................................363
Comments ...............................................................................................364
Parameters and Variables .........................................................................364
Shell Variables ................................................................................364
Positional Parameters .....................................................................365
Special Parameters ..........................................................................365
Parameter Substitution ...................................................................366
Command Re-entry .................................................................................367
The fc Command ...........................................................................368
vi Line Edit Mode ...........................................................................368
Quoting ....................................................................................................370
Tilde Substitution ...........................................................................371
Arithmetic Expressions ...................................................................371
Filename Substitution ..............................................................................372
I/O Redirection ........................................................................................373
Exported Variables and Subshell Execution ............................................373
The (...) Construct ..........................................................................374
The { ...; } Construct .......................................................................374
More on Shell Variables .................................................................374
Functions .................................................................................................374
xii UNIX SHELL PROGRAMMING

Job Control ..............................................................................................375

Shell Jobs ........................................................................................375
Stopping Jobs ..................................................................................375
Command Summary ...............................................................................376
The : Command ............................................................................376
The . Command ............................................................................376
The alias Command .....................................................................377
The bg Command ..........................................................................377
The break Command .....................................................................377
The case Command .......................................................................378
The cd Command ..........................................................................379
The continue command ................................................................380
The echo Command .......................................................................380
The eval Command .......................................................................381
The exec Command .......................................................................381
The exit Command .......................................................................382
The export Command ...................................................................382
The false Command .....................................................................383
The fc Command ..........................................................................383
The fg Command ..........................................................................384
The for Command .........................................................................384
The getopts Command .................................................................385
The hash Command .......................................................................387
The if Command ..........................................................................387
The jobs Command .......................................................................390
The kill Command .......................................................................390
The newgrp Command ...................................................................391
The pwd Command .........................................................................391
The read Command .......................................................................392
The readonly Command ...............................................................392
The return Command ...................................................................393
The set Command .........................................................................393
The shift Command .....................................................................395
The test Command .......................................................................396
The times Command .....................................................................398
The trap Command .......................................................................398
The true Command .......................................................................399
The type Command .......................................................................399
The umask Command .....................................................................400
 Contents xiii

The unalias Command .................................................................400

The unset Command .....................................................................400
The until Command .....................................................................400
The wait Command .......................................................................401
The while Command .....................................................................402

B For More Information 403

Online Documentation ...........................................................................403
Documentation on the Web ...................................................................403
Books ........................................................................................................404
O’Reilly & Associates ......................................................................404
Sams and Que .................................................................................405
Other Publishers .............................................................................406
About the Authors

Stephen G. Kochan is the owner of TechFitness, a technology-based fitness

company. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of Pipeline Associates, a company
specializing in color printing software. Mr. Kochan is the author of several best-
selling books on Unix and C programming, including the best-selling Programming in
C. He also acted as Series Editor for the Hayden Unix System Library.

Patrick Wood is the CTO of the New Jersey location of Electronics for Imaging. He
was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories when he met Mr. Kochan in
1985. Together they founded Pipeline Associates, Inc., a Unix consulting firm, where
he was the Vice President. They coauthored Exploring the Unix System, Unix System
Security, Topics in C Programming, and Unix Shell Programming.
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 The Ancestral Old Homestead, Built 1676.

Both my parents were sincere, though not austere Christian

people, my mother in particular inclining to a liberal faith, but both
were in early days members of the "Disciples," or as sometimes
known as "Newlites," afterwards, I believe, merged with the
"Christian" church, popularly known as the "Campbellites" and were
ardent admirers of Love Jameson, who presided so long over the
Christian organization at Indianapolis, and whom I particularly
remember as one of the sweetest singers that I ever heard.
Small wonder that with such parents and with such surroundings I
am able to say that for fifty-eight years of married life I have never
been sick in bed a single day, and that I can and have endured long
hours of labor during my whole life, and what is particularly
gratifying that I can truthfully say that I have always loved my work
and that I never watched for the sun to go down to relieve me from
the burden of labor.
 "Burden of labor?" Why should any man call labor a burden? It's
the sweetest pleasure of life, if we will but look aright. Give me
nothing of the "man with the hoe" sentiment, as depicted by
Markham, but let me see the man with a light heart; that labors;
that fulfills a destiny the good God has given him; that fills an
honored place in life even if in an humble station; that looks upon
the bright side of life while striving as best he may to do his duty. I
am led into these thoughts by what I see around about me, so
changed from that of my boyhood days where labor was held to be
honorable, even though in humble stations.
But, to return to my story. My earliest recollection, curiously
enough, is of my schoolboy days, of which I had so few. I was
certainly not five years old when a drunken, brutal school teacher
undertook to spank me while holding me on his knees because I did
not speak a word plainly. That is the first fight I have any
recollection of, and would hardly remember that but for the
witnesses, one of them my oldest brother, who saw the struggle,
where my teeth did such excellent work as to draw blood quite
freely. What a spectacle that, of a half-drunken teacher maltreating
his scholars! But then that was a time before a free school system,
and when the parson would not hesitate to take a "wee bit," and
when, if the decanter was not on the sideboard, the jug and gourd
served well in the field or house. To harvest without whisky in the
field was not to be thought of; nobody ever heard of a log-rolling or
barn-raising without whisky. And so I will say to the zealous
temperance reformers, be of good cheer, for the world has moved in
these eighty-five years. Be it said, though, to the everlasting honor
of my father, that he set his head firmly against the practice, and
said his grain should rot in the field before he would supply whisky
to his harvest hands, and I have no recollections of ever but once
tasting any alcoholic liquors in my boyhood days.
I did, however, learn to smoke when very young. It came about in
this way: My mother always smoked, as long as I can remember.
Women those days smoked as well as men, and nothing was
thought of it.
Well, that was before the time of matches, or leastwise, it was a
time when it was thought necessary to economize in their use, and
mother, who was a corpulent woman, would send me to put a coal
in her pipe, and so I would take a whiff or two, just to get it started,
you know, which, however, soon developed into the habit of
lingering to keep it going. But let me be just to myself,—for more
than thirty years ago I threw away my pipe and have never smoked
since, and never will, and now to those smokers who say they "can't
quit" I want to call their attention to one case of a man who did.
My next recollection of school-days was after father had moved to
Lockland, Ohio, then ten miles north of Cincinnati, now, I presume, a
suburb of that great city. I played "hookey" instead of going to
school, but one day while under the canal bridge the noise of
passing teams so frightened me that I ran home and betrayed
himself. Did my mother whip me? Why, God bless her dear old soul,
no. Whipping of children, though, both at home and in the school-
room, was then about as common as eating one's breakfast; but my
parents did not think it was necessary to rule by the rod, though
then their family government was exceptional. And so we see now a
different rule prevailing, and see that the world does move and is
getting better.
After my father's removal to Indiana times were "hard," as the
common expression goes, and all members of the household for a
season were called upon to contribute their mite. I drove four yoke
of oxen for twenty-five cents a day, and a part of that time boarded
at home at that. This was on the Wabash where oak grubs grew, as
father often said, "as thick as hair on a dog's back," but not so thick
as that. But we used to force the big plow through and cut grubs
with the plow shear, as big as my wrist; and when we saw a patch of
them ahead, then was when I learned how to halloo and rave at the
poor oxen and inconsiderately whip them, but father wouldn't let me
swear at them. Let me say parenthetically that I have long since
discontinued such a foolish practice, and that I now talk to my oxen
in a conversational tone of voice and use the whip sparingly. When
father moved to Indianapolis, I think in 1842, "times" seemed harder
than ever, and I was put to work wherever an opportunity for
employment offered, and encouraged by my mother to seek odd
jobs and keep the money myself, she, however, becoming my
banker; and in three years I had actually accumulated $37.00. My!
but what a treasure that was to me, and what a bond of confidence
between my mother and myself, for no one else, as I thought, knew
about my treasure. I found out afterwards, though, that father knew
about it all the time.
My ambition was to get some land. I had heard there was a forty-
acre tract in Hendricks County (Indiana) yet to be entered at $1.25
per acre, and as soon as I could get $50.00 together I meant to
hunt up that land and secure it. I used to dream about that land day
times as well as at night. I sawed wood and cut each stick twice for
twenty-five cents a cord, and enjoyed the experience, for at night I
could add to my treasure. It was because my mind did not run on
school work and because of my restless disposition that my mother
allowed me to do this instead of compelling me to attend school,
and which cut down my real schoolboy days to less than six months.
It was, to say the least, a dangerous experiment and one which only
a mother (who knows her child better than all others) dare take, and
I will not by any means advise other mothers to adopt such a
course.
Then when did you get your education? the casual reader may
ask. I will tell you a story. When in 1870 I wrote my first book (long
since out of print), "Washington Territory West of the Cascade
Mountains," and submitted the work to the Eastern public, a copy
fell into the hands of Jay Cooke, who then had six power presses
running advertising the Northern Pacific railroad, and he at once
took up my whole edition. Mr. Cooke, whom I met, closely
questioned me as to where I was educated. After having answered
his many queries about my life on the frontier he would not listen to
my disclaimer that I was not an educated man, referring to the work
in his hand. The fact then dawned on me that it was the reading of
the then current literature of the day that had taught me. I
answered that the New York Tribune had educated me, as I had
then been a close reader of that paper for eighteen years, and it was
there I got my pure English diction, if I possessed it. We received
mails only twice a month for a long time, and sometimes only once a
month, and it is needless to say that all the matter in the paper was
read and much of it re-read and studied in the cabin and practiced in
the field. However, I do not set my face against school training, but
can better express my meaning by the quaint saying that "too much
of a good thing is more than enough," a phrase in a way senseless,
which yet conveys a deeper meaning than the literal words express.
The context will show the lack of a common school education, after
all, was not entirely for want of an opportunity, but from my aversion
to confinement and preference for work to study.
In those days apprenticeship was quite common, and it was not
thought to be a disgrace for a child to be "bound out" until he was
twenty-one, the more especially if this involved learning a trade.
Father took a notion he would "bind me out" to a Mr. Arthens, the
mill owner at Lockland, who was childless, and took me with him
one day to talk it over. Finally, when asked how I would like the
change, I promptly replied that it would be all right if Mrs. Arthens
would "do up my sore toes", whereupon there was such an outburst
of merriment that I always remembered it. We must remember that
boys in those days did not wear shoes in summer and quite often
not in winter either. But mother put a quietus on the whole business
and said the family must not be divided, and it was not, and in that
she was right. Give me the humble home for a child, that is a home
in fact, rather than the grandest palace where home life is but a
sham.
I come now to an important event of my life, when father moved
from Lockland, Ohio, to near Covington, Indiana. I was not yet
seven years old, but walked all the way behind the wagon and
began building "castles in the air," which is the first (but by no
means the last) that I remember. We were going out to Indiana to
be farmers, and it was here, near the banks of the Wabash, that I
learned the art of driving four yoke of oxen to a breaking plow,
without swearing.
That reminds me of an after-experience, the summer I was
nineteen. Uncle John Kinworthy (good old soul he was), an ardent
Quaker, who lived a mile or so out from Bridgeport, Indiana, asked
me one day while I was passing his place with three yoke of oxen to
haul a heavy cider press beam in place. This led the oxen through
the front dooryard and in full sight and hearing of three buxom
Quaker girls, who either stood in the door or poked their heads out
of the window, in company with their good mother. Go through the
front yard past those girls the cattle would not, and kept doubling
back, first on one side and then on the other. Uncle Johnny, noticing
I did not swear at the cattle, and attributing the absence of oaths to
the presence of ladies, or maybe, like a good many others, he
thought oxen could not be driven without swearing at them, sought
an opportunity, when the mistress of the house could not hear him,
and said in a low tone, "If thee can do any better, thee had better let
out the word." Poor, good old soul, he doubtless justified himself in
his own mind that it was no more sin to swear all the time than part
of the time; and why is it? I leave the answer to that person, if he
can be found, that never swears.
Yes, I say again, give me the humble home for a child, that is a
home in fact, rather than the grandest palace where home life is but
a sham. And right here is where this generation has a grave problem
to solve, if it's not the gravest of the age, the severance of child life
from the real home and the real home influences, by the factory
child labor, the boarding schools, the rush for city life, and so many
others of like influences at work, that one can only take time to
mention examples.
And now the reader will ask, What do you mean by the home life?
and to answer that I will relate some features of my early home life,
though by no means would say that I would want to return to all the
ways of "ye olden times."
My mother always expected each child to have a duty to perform,
as well as time to play. Light labor, to be sure, but labor; something
of service. Our diet was so simple, the mere mention of it may
create a smile with the casual reader. The mush pot was a great
factor in our home life; a great heavy iron pot that hung on the
crane in the chimney corner where the mush would slowly bubble
and splutter over or near a bed of oak coals for half the afternoon.
And such mush, always made from yellow corn meal and cooked
three hours or more. This, eaten with plenty of fresh, rich milk
comprised the supper for the children. Tea? Not to be thought of.
Sugar? It was too expensive—cost fifteen to eighteen cents a pound,
and at a time it took a week's labor to earn as much as a day's labor
now. Cheap molasses, sometimes, but not often. Meat, not more
than once a day, but eggs in abundance. Everything father had to
sell was low-priced, while everything mother must buy at the store
was high. Only to think of it, you who complain of the hard lot of the
workers of this generation: wheat twenty-five cents a bushel, corn
fifteen cents, pork two and two and a half cents a pound, with
bacon sometimes used as fuel by the reckless, racing steamboat
captains of the Ohio and Mississippi. But when we got onto the farm
with abundance of fruit and vegetables, with plenty of pumpkin pies
and apple dumplings, our cup of joy was full, and we were the
happiest mortals on earth. As I have said, 4:00 o'clock scarcely ever
found mother in bed, and until within very recent years I can say
that 5:00 o'clock almost invariably finds me up. Habit, do you say?
No, not wholly, though that may have something to do with it, but I
get up early because I want to, and because I have something to
do.
When I was born, thirty miles of railroad comprised the whole
mileage of the United States, and this only a tramway. Now, how
many hundred thousand miles I know not, but many miles over the
two hundred thousand mark. When I crossed the great states of
Illinois and Iowa on my way to Oregon in 1852 not a mile of railroad
was seen in either state. Only four years before, the first line was
built in Indiana, really a tramway, from Madison, on the Ohio River,
to Indianapolis. What a furore the building of that railroad created!
Earnest, honest men opposed the building just as sincerely as men
now advocate public ownership; both propositions are fallacious, the
one long since exploded, the other in due time, as sure to die out as
the first. My father was a strong advocate of the railroads, but I
caught the arguments on the other side advocated with such
vehemence as to have the sound of anger. What will our farmers do
with their hay if all the teams that are hauling freight to the Ohio
River are thrown out of employment? What will the tavern keepers
do? What will become of the wagoners? A hundred such queries
would be asked by the opponents of the railroad and, to themselves,
triumphantly answered that the country would be ruined if railroads
were built. Nevertheless, Indianapolis has grown from ten thousand
to much over two hundred thousand, notwithstanding the city
enjoyed the unusual distinction of being the first terminal city in the
state of Indiana. I remember it was the boast of the railroad
magnates of that day that they would soon increase the speed of
their trains to fourteen miles an hour,—this when they were running
twelve.
In the year 1845 a letter came from Grandfather Baker to my
mother that he would give her a thousand dollars with which to buy
a farm. The burning question with my father and mother was how to
get that money out from Ohio to Indiana. They actually went in a
covered wagon to Ohio for it and hauled it home, all silver, in a box.
This silver was nearly all foreign coin. Prior to that time, but a few
million dollars had been coined by the United States Government.
Grandfather Baker had accumulated this money by marketing small
things in Cincinnati, twenty-five miles distant. I have heard my
mother tell of going to market on horseback with grandfather many
times, carrying eggs, butter and even live chickens on the horse she
rode. Grandfather would not go in debt, and so he lived on his farm
a long time without a wagon, but finally became wealthy, and was
reputed to have a "barrel of money" (silver, of course), out of which
store the thousand dollars mentioned came. It took nearly a whole
day to count this thousand dollars, as there seemed to be nearly
every nation's coin on earth represented, and the "tables" (of value)
had to be consulted, the particular coins counted, and their
aggregate value computed.
It was this money that bought the farm five miles southwest of
Indianapolis, where I received my first real farm training. Father had
advanced ideas about farming, though a miller by trade, and early
taught me some valuable lessons I never forgot. We (I say "we"
advisedly, as father continued to work in the mill and left me in
charge of the farm) soon brought up the run-down farm to produce
twenty-three bushels of wheat per acre instead of ten, by the
rotation of corn, and clover and then wheat. But there was no
money in farming at the then prevailing prices, and the land, for
which father paid ten dollars an acre, would not yield a rental equal
to the interest on the money. Now that same land has recently sold
for six hundred dollars an acre.
For a time I worked in the Journal printing office for S. V. B. Noel,
who, I think, was the publisher of the Journal, and also printed a
free-soil paper. A part of my duty was to deliver those papers to
subscribers, who treated me civilly, but when I was caught on the
streets of Indianapolis with the papers in my hand I was sure of
abuse from some one, and a number of times narrowly escaped
personal violence. In the office I worked as roller boy, but known as
"the devil," a term that annoyed me not a little. The pressman was a
man by the name of Wood. In the same room was a power press,
the power being a stalwart negro who turned a crank. We used to
race with the power press, when I would fly the sheets, that is, take
them off when printed with one hand and roll the type with the
other. This so pleased Noel that he advanced my wages to $1.50 a
week.
The present generation can have no conception of the brutal
virulence of the advocates of slavery against the "nigger" and
"nigger lovers," as all were known who did not join in the crusade
against the negroes.
One day we heard a commotion on the streets, and upon inquiry
were told that "they had just killed a nigger up the street, that's all,"
and went back to work shocked, but could do nothing. But when a
little later word came that it was Wood's brother that had led the
mob and that it was "old Jimmy Blake's man" (who was known as a
sober, inoffensive colored man) consternation seized Wood as with
an iron grip. His grief was inconsolable. The negro had been set
upon by the mob just because he was a negro and for no other
reason, and brutally murdered. That murder, coupled with the abuse
I had received at the hands of this same element, set me to
thinking, and I then and there embraced the anti-slavery doctrines
and ever after adhered to them until the question was settled.
One of the subscribers to whom I delivered that anti-slavery paper
was Henry Ward Beecher, who had then not attained the fame that
came to him later in life, but to whom I became attached by his kind
treatment and gentle words he always found time to utter. He was
then, I think the pastor of the Congregational Church that faced the
"Governor's Circle." The church has long since been torn down.
One episode of my life I remember because I thought my parents
were in the wrong. Vocal music was taught in singing school, almost,
I might say, as regular as day schools. I was passionately fond of
music, and before the change came had a splendid alto voice, and
became a leader in my part of the class. This coming to the notice of
the trustees of Beecher's church, an effort was made to have me
join the choir. Mother first objected because my clothes were not
good enough, whereupon an offer was made to suitably clothe me
and pay something besides; but father objected because he did not
want me to listen to preaching other than the sect (Campbellite) to
which he belonged. The incident set me to thinking, and finally
drove me, young as I was, into the liberal faith, though I dared not
openly espouse it. In those days many ministers openly preached of
endless punishment in a lake of fire, but I never could believe that
doctrine, and yet their words would carry terror into my heart. The
ways of the world are better now in this, as in many other respects.
Another episode of my life while working in the printing office I
have remembered vividly all these years. During the campaign of
1844 the Whigs held a second gathering on the Tippecanoe battle-
ground. It could hardly be called a convention. A better name for the
gathering would be a political camp-meeting. The people came in
wagons, on horseback, afoot—any way to get there—and camped
just like people used to do in their religious camp-meetings. The
journeymen printers of the Journal office planned to go in a covered
dead-ax wagon, and signified they would make a place for the
"devil," if his parents would let him go along. This was speedily
arranged with mother, who always took charge of such matters. The
proposition coming to Noel's ears he said for the men to print me
some campaign songs, which they did with a will, Wood running
them off the press after night while I rolled the type for him. My!
wasn't I the proudest boy that ever walked the earth? Visions of a
pocket full of money haunted me almost day and night until we
arrived on the battlefield. But lo and behold, nobody would pay any
attention to me. Bands of music were playing here and there; glee
clubs would sing and march first on one side of the ground and then
the other; processions were marching and the crowds surging,
making it necessary for one to look out and not get run over.
Coupled with this, the rain would pour down in torrents, but the
marching and countermarching went on all the same and continued
for a week. An elderly journeyman printer named May, who in a way
stood sponsor for our party, told me if I would get up on the fence
and sing my songs the people would buy them, and sure enough the
crowds came and I sold every copy I had, and went home with
eleven dollars in my pocket, the richest boy on earth.
It was about this time the start was made of printing the
Indianapolis News, a paper that has thriven all these after years.
These same rollicking printers that comprised the party to the battle-
ground put their heads together to have some fun, and began
printing out of hours a small 9x11 sheet filled with short paragraphs
of sharp sayings of men and things about town, some more
expressive than elegant, and some, in fact, not fit for polite ears; but
the pith of the matter was they treated only of things that were true
and of men moving in the highest circles. I cannot recall the given
names of any of these men. May, the elderly man before referred to,
a man named Finly, and another, Elder, were the leading spirits in
the enterprise. Wood did the presswork and my share was to ink the
type and in part stealthily distribute the papers, for it was a great
secret where they came from at the start—all this "just for the fun of
the thing," but the sheet caused so much comment and became
sought after so much that the mask was thrown off and the little
paper launched as a "semi-occasional" publication and "sold by
carrier only," all this after hours, when the regular day's work was
finished. I picked up quite a good many fip-i-na-bits (a coin
representing the value of 6¼ cents) myself from the sale of these.
After a while the paper was published regularly, a rate established,
and the little paper took its place among the regular publications of
the day. This writing is altogether from memory of occurrences
seventy years ago, and may be faulty in detail, but the main facts
are true, which probably will be borne out by the files of the great
newspaper that has grown from the seed sown by those restless
journeymen printers.
It seems though that I was not "cut out" for a printer. My
inclination ran more to the open air life, and so father placed me on
the farm as soon as the purchase was made and left me in full
charge of the work, while he turned his attention to milling. Be it
said that I early turned my attention to the girls as well as to the
farm, married young—before I had reached the age of twenty-one,
and can truly say this was a happy venture, for we lived happily
together for fifty-eight years before the call came and now there are
thirty-six descendants to revere the name of the sainted mother.
And now for a little insight into these times of precious memories
that never fade, and always lend gladness to the heart.
 CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD DAYS.
My mother said I was "always the busiest young'en she ever saw,"
which meant I was restless from the beginning—born so.
According to the best information obtainable, I was born in a log
cabin, where the fireplace was nearly as wide as the cabin. The two
doors on opposite sides admitted the horse, dragging the backlog, to
enter in one, and go out at the other, and of course the solid
puncheon floor defied injury from rough treatment.
The crane swung to and fro to regulate the bubbling mush in the
pot. The skillet and dutch oven occupied places of favor, instead of
the cook stove, to bake the pone or johnny cake, or to parch the
corn, or to fry the venison, which was then obtainable in the wilds of
Ohio.
A curtain at the farther end of the cabin marked the confines of a
bed chamber for the "old folk", while the elder children climbed the
ladder nailed to the wall to the loft of loose clapboard that rattled
when trod upon and where the pallets were so near the roof that the
patter of the rain made music to the ear, and the spray of the falling
water, not infrequently, would baptize the "tow-heads" left
uncovered.
Mother used to give us boys mush and milk for supper, and only
that, and then turned us out to romp or play or do up chores as the
case might be, and sometimes as I now think of it, we must almost
have made a burden of life for her, but she always seemed to think
that anything we did in the way of antics was funny and about right.
 It is mete to recall to mind that this date (of my birth) 1830, was
just after the first railroad was built (1826) in the United States, just
after friction matches were discovered (1827), just when the first
locomotive was run (1829), and "daguerreotype" was invented.
Following these came the McCormick reaper, immortalizing a name;
the introduction of photography (1839), and finally the telegraph
(1844) to hand down the name of Morse to all future generations as
long as history is recorded. Then came the sewing machine (1846)
to lighten the housewife's labor and make possible the vast advance
in adornment in dress.
The few pioneers left will remember how the teeth were "yanked"
out, and he must "grin and bear it" until chloroform came into use
(1847), the beginning of easing the pain in surgical work and the
near cessation of blood-letting for all sorts of ills to which the race
was heir.
The world had never heard of artesian wells until after I was
eleven years old (1841). Then came the Atlantic cable (1858), and
the discovery of coal oil (1859). Time and events combined to
revolutionize the affairs of the world. I well remember the "power"
printing press (the power being a sturdy negro turning a crank), in a
room where I worked a while as "the devil" in Noel's office in
Indianapolis (1844) that would print 500 impressions an hour, and I
have recently seen the monster living things that would seem to do
almost everything but think, run off its 96,000 of completed
newspapers in the same period of time, folded and counted.
The removal to "Lockland", alongside the "raging canal", seemed
only a way station to the longer drive to Indiana, the longest walk of
my life in my younger days, which I vividly remember to this day,
taken from Lockland, ten miles out from Cincinnati, to Attica, Indiana
a distance approximately of two hundred miles, when but nine years
old, during the autumn of 1839. With the one wagon piled high with
the household goods and mother with two babies, one yet in arms.
There was no room in the wagon for the two boys, my brother Oliver
Meeker, eleven years old, and myself, as already stated but nine.
The horses walked a good brisk gait and kept us quite busy to keep
up, but not so busy as to prevent us at times from throwing stones
at squirrels or to kill a garter snake or gather flowers for mother and
baby, or perhaps watch the bees gathering honey or the red-headed
woodpeckers pecking the trees. Barefooted and bareheaded with
tow pants and checkered "linsy woolsy" shirt and a strip of cloth for
"galluses", as suspenders were then called, we did present an
appearance that might be called primitive. Little did we think or care
for appearance, bent as we were upon having a good time, and
which we did for the whole trip. One dreary stretch of swamp that
kept us on the corduroy road behind the jolting wagon was
remembered which Uncle Usual Meeker, who was driving the wagon,
called the "Big Swamp", which I afterwards learned was near
Crawfordsville, Indiana. I discovered on my recent trip with the ox-
team that the water of the swamp is gone, the corduroy gone, the
timber as well, and instead great barns and pretentious homes have
taken their places and dot the landscape as far as the eye can reach.
One habit we boys acquired on that trip stuck to us for life; until
the brother was lost in the disaster of the steamer Northerner,
January 5, 1861, 23 years after the barefoot trip. We followed
behind the wagon part of the time and each took the name of the
horse on his side of the road. I was "Tip" and on the off side, while
the brother was "Top" and on the near side. "Tip" and "Top", a great
big fat span of grey horses that as Uncle Usual said "would run away
at the drop of a hat" was something to be proud of and each would
champion his favorite ahead of him. We built castles in the air at
times as we trudged along, of raising chickens, of getting honey
bees, such as we saw at times on the road; at other times it would
be horses and then lambs, if we happened to see a flock of sheep as
we passed by—anything and everything that our imagination would
conjure and which by the way made us happy and contented with
our surroundings and the world at large. This habit of my brother's
walking on the near side and I on the off side continued, as I have
said, to the end of his life, and we were much together in after life in
Indiana, on the plains, and finally here in Washington. We soon, as
boys, entered into partnership, raising a garden, chickens, ducks,
anything to be busy, all of which our parents enjoyed, and continued
our partnership till manhood and until his death parted us. It is
wonderful how those early recollections of trivial matters will still be
remembered until old age overtakes us, while questions of greater
importance encountered later on in life escape our memory and are
lost.
 CHAPTER III.
EARLY DAYS IN INDIANA.
In the early '50's, out four and a half and seven miles,
respectively, from Indianapolis, Indiana, there lived two young
people with their parents, who were old-time farmers of the old
style, keeping no "hired man" nor buying many "store goods." The
girl could spin and weave, make delicious butter, knit soft, good
shapen socks, and cook as good a meal as any other country girl
around about, and was, withal, as buxom a lass as had ever been
"born and raised there (Indiana) all her life."
These were times when sugar sold for eighteen cents per pound,
calico fifteen cents per yard, salt three dollars a barrel, and all other
goods at correspondingly high prices; while butter would bring but
ten cents a pound, eggs five cents a dozen, and wheat but two bits
(twenty-five cents) a bushel. And so, when these farmers went to
the market town (Indianapolis) care was taken to carry along
something to sell, either eggs, or butter, or perhaps a half dozen
pairs of socks, or maybe a few yards of home-made cloth, as well as
some grain, or hay, or a bit of pork, or possibly a load of wood, to
make ends meet at the store.
The young man was a little uncouth in appearance, round-faced,
rather stout in build—almost fat—a little boisterous, always restless,
and without a very good address, yet with at least one redeeming
trait of character—he loved his work and was known to be as
industrious a lad as any in the neighborhood.
These young people would sometimes meet at the "Brimstone
meeting-house," a Methodist church known (far and wide) by that
name; so named by the unregenerate because of the open
preaching of endless torment to follow non-church members and
sinners after death—a literal lake of fire—taught with vehemence
and accompanied by boisterous scenes of shouting by those who
were "saved." Amid these scenes and these surroundings these two
young people grew up to the age of manhood and womanhood,
knowing but little of the world outside of their home sphere,—and
who knows but as happy as if they had seen the whole world? Had
they not experienced the joys of the sugar camp while "stirring off"
the lively creeping maple sugar? Both had been thumped upon the
bare head by the falling hickory nuts in windy weather; had hunted
the black walnuts half hidden in the leaves; had scraped the ground
for the elusive beech nuts; had even ventured to apple parings
together, though not yet out of their "teens."
The lad hunted the 'possum and the coon in the White River
bottom, now the suburb of the city of Indianapolis, and had cut even
the stately walnut trees, now so valuable, that the cunning coon
might be driven from his hiding place.

I'M GOING TO BE A FARMER.

"I'm going to be a farmer when I get married," the young man
quite abruptly said one day to the lass, without any previous
conversation to lead up to such an assertion, to the confusion of his
companion, who could not mistake the thoughts that prompted the
words. A few months later the lass said, "Yes, I want to be a farmer,
too, but I want to be a farmer on our own land," and two bargains
were confirmed then and there when the lad said, "We will go West
and not live on pap's farm." "Nor in the old cabin, nor any cabin
unless it's our own," came the response, and so the resolution was
made that they would go to Iowa, get some land and "grow up with
the country."

OFF FOR IOWA.

 About the first week of October, 1851, a covered wagon drew up
in front of Thomas Sumner's habitation, then but four miles out from
Indianapolis on the National road, ready to be loaded for the start.
Eliza Jane, the second daughter of that noble man, the "lass"
described, then the wife of the young man mentioned, the author,
was ready, with cake and apple butter and pumpkin pies, jellies and
the like, enough to last the whole trip, and plenty of substantials
besides. Not much of a load to be sure, but it was all we had; plenty
of blankets, a good sized Dutch oven, and each an extra pair of
shoes, cloth for two new dresses for the wife, and for an extra pair
of trousers for the husband.
Tears could be restrained no longer as the loading progressed and
the stern realization faced the parents of both that the young couple
were about to leave them.
"Why, mother, we are only going out to Iowa, you know, where
we can get a home that shall be our own; it's not so very far—only
about 500 miles."
"Yes, I know, but suppose you get sick in that uninhabited country
—who will care for you?"
Notwithstanding this motherly solicitude, the young people could
not fail to know that there was a secret feeling of approval in the
good woman's breast, and when, after a few miles' travel, the
reluctant final parting came, could not then know that this loved
parent would lay down her life a few years later in an heroic attempt
to follow the wanderers to Oregon, and that her bones would rest in
an unknown and unmarked grave of the Platte valley.
Of that October drive from the home near Indianapolis to
Eddyville, Iowa, in the delicious (shall I say delicious, for what other
word expresses it?) atmosphere of an Indian summer, and in the
atmosphere of hope and content; hope born of aspirations—content
with our lot, born of a confidence of the future, what shall I say?
What matter if we had but a few dollars in money and but few
belongings?—we had the wide world before us; we had good health;
and before and above all we had each other, and were supremely
happy and rich in our anticipations.
At this time but one railroad entered Indianapolis—it would be
called a tramway now—from Madison on the Ohio River, and when
we cut loose from that embryo city we left railroads behind us,
except such as were found in the wagon track where the rails were
laid crossways to keep the wagon out of the mud. What matter if the
road was rough? We could go a little slower, and then wouldn't we
have a better appetite for our supper because of the jolting, and
wouldn't we sleep a little sounder for it? And so everything in all the
world looked bright, and what little mishaps did befall us were
looked upon with light hearts, because we realized that they might
have been worse.
The great Mississippi River was crossed at Burlington, or rather,
we embarked several miles down the river, and were carried up to
the landing at Burlington, and after a few days' further driving
landed in Eddyville, Iowa, destined to be only a place to winter, and
a way station on our route to Oregon.

AN IOWA WINTER.
My first introduction to an Iowa winter was in a surveyor's camp
on the western borders of the state, a little north of Kanesville (now
Council Bluffs), as cook of the party, which position was speedily
changed and that of flagman assigned to me.
If there are any settlers now left of the Iowa of that day (sixty-
four years ago) they will remember the winter was bitter cold—the
"coldest within the memory of the oldest inhabitant." On my trip
back from the surveying party above mentioned to Eddyville, just
before Christmas, I encountered one of those cold days long to be
remembered. A companion named Vance rested with me over night
in a cabin, with scant food for ourselves or the mare we led. It was
thirty-five miles to the next cabin; we must reach that place or lay
out on the snow. So a very early start was made—before daybreak,
while the wind lay. The good lady of the cabin baked some biscuit
for a noon lunch, but they were frozen solid in our pockets before
we had been out two hours. The wind rose with the sun, and with
the sun two bright sundogs, one on each side, and alongside of
each, but slightly less bright, another—a beautiful sight to behold,
but arising from conditions intolerable to bear. Vance came near
freezing to death, and would had I not succeeded in arousing him to
anger and gotten him off the mare.
I vowed then and there that I did not like the Iowa climate, and
the Oregon fever was visibly quickened. Besides, if I went to Oregon
the government would give us 320 acres of land, while in Iowa we
should have to purchase it,—at a low price to be sure, but it must be
bought and paid for on the spot. There were no pre-emption or
beneficial homestead laws in force then, and not until many years
later. The country was a wide, open, rolling prairie—a beautiful
country indeed—but what about a market? No railroads, no wagon
roads, no cities, no meeting-houses, no schools—the prospect
looked drear. How easy it is for one when his mind is once bent
against a country to conjure up all sorts of reasons to bolster his,
perhaps hasty, conclusions; and so Iowa was condemned as
unsuited to our life abiding place.
But what about going to Oregon when springtime came? An
interesting event was pending that rendered a positive decision
impossible for the moment, and not until the first week of April,
1852, when our first-born baby boy was a month old, could we say
that we were going to Oregon in 1852.
 CHAPTER IV.
OFF FOR OREGON.
I have been asked hundreds of times how many wagons were in
the train I traveled with, and what train it was, and who was the
captain?—assuming that, of course, we must have been with some
train.
I have invariably answered, one train, one wagon, and that we
had no captain. What I meant by one train is, that I looked upon the
whole emigration, strung out on the plains five hundred miles, as
one train. For long distances the throng was so great that the road
was literally filled with wagons as far as the eye could reach. At
Kanesville where the last purchases were made, or the last letter
sent to anxious friends, the congestion became so great that the
teams were literally blocked, and stood in line for hours before they
could get out of the jam. Then, as to a captain, we didn't think we
needed one, and so when we drove out of Eddyville, there was but
one wagon in our train, two yoke of four-year-old steers, one yoke of
cows, and one extra cow. This cow was the only animal we lost on
the whole trip—strayed in the Missouri River bottom before crossing.
And now as to the personnel of our little party. William Buck, who
became my partner for the trip, was a man six years my senior, had
had some experience on the Plains, and knew about the outfit
needed, but had no knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was
an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of
excellent judgment and as honest as God Almighty makes men. No
lazy bones occupied a place in Buck's body. He was so scrupulously
neat and cleanly that some might say he was fastidious, but such
was not the case. His aptitude for the camp work, and unfitness for
handling the team, at once, as we might say by natural selection,
divided the cares of the household, sending the married men to the
range with the team and the bachelor to the camp. The little wife
was in ideal health, and almost as particular as Buck (not quite
though) while the young husband would be a little more on the
slouchy order, if the reader will pardon the use of that word, more
expressive than elegant.
Buck selected the outfit to go into the wagon, while I fitted up the
wagon and bought the team.
We had butter, packed in the center of the flour in double sacks;
eggs packed in corn meal or flour, to last us nearly five hundred
miles; fruit in abundance, and dried pumpkins; a little jerked beef,
not too salt, and last, though not least, a demijohn of brandy for
"medicinal purposes only," as Buck said, with a merry twinkle of the
eye that exposed the subterfuge which he knew I understood
without any sign. The little wife had prepared the home-made yeast
cake which she knew so well how to make and dry, and we had light
bread all the way, baked in a tin reflector instead of the heavy Dutch
ovens so much in use on the Plains.
Albeit the butter to considerable extent melted and mingled with
the flour, yet we were not much disconcerted, as the "short-cake"
that followed made us almost glad the mishap had occurred.
Besides, did we not have plenty of fresh butter, from the milk of our
own cows, churned every day in the can, by the jostle of the wagon?
Then the buttermilk! What a luxury! Yes, that's the word—a real
luxury. I will never, so long as I live, forget that short-cake and corn-
bread, the puddings and pumpkin pies, and above all the buttermilk.
The reader who smiles at this may recall that it is the small things
that make up the happiness of life.
But it was more than that. As we gradually crept out on the Plains
and saw the sickness and suffering caused by improper food and in
some cases from improper preparation, it gradually dawned on me
how blessed I was, with such a partner as Buck and such a life
partner as the little wife. Some trains, it soon transpired, were
without fruit, and most of them depended upon saleratus for raising
their bread. Many had only fat bacon for meat until the buffalo
supplied a change; and no doubt much of the sickness attributed to
the cholera was caused by an ill-suited diet.
I am willing to claim credit for the team, every hoof of which
reached the Coast in safety. Four (four-year-old) steers and two
cows were sufficient for our light wagon and light outfit, not a pound
of which but was useful (except the brandy) and necessary for our
comfort. Not one of these steers had ever been under the yoke,
though plenty of "broke" oxen could be had, but generally of that
class that had been broken in spirit as well as in training, so when
we got across the Des Moines River with the cattle strung out to the
wagon and Buck on the off side to watch, while I, figuratively
speaking, took the reins in hand, we may have presented a ludicrous
sight, but did not have time to think whether we did or not, and
cared but little so the team would go.

FIRST DAY OUT.

The first day's drive out from Eddyville was a short one, and so far
as I now remember the only one on the entire trip where the cattle
were allowed to stand in the yoke at noon while the owners lunched
and rested. I made it a rule, no matter how short the noontime, to
unyoke and let the cattle rest or eat while we rested and ate, and on
the last (1906) trip rigidly adhered to that rule.
An amusing scene was enacted when, at near nightfall, the first
camp was made. Buck excitedly insisted we must not unyoke the
cattle. "Well, what shall we do?" I asked; "They can't live in the yoke
always; we will have to unyoke them sometimes."
"Yes, but if you unyoke here you will never catch them again,"
came the response. One word brought on another, until the war of
words had almost reached the stage of a dispute, when a stranger,
Thomas McAuley, who was camped nearby, with a twinkle in his eye
I often afterwards saw and will always remember, interfered and
said his cattle were gentle and there were three men of his party
and that they would help us yoke up in the morning. I gratefully
accepted his proffered help, speedily unyoked, and ever after that
never a word with the merest semblance of contention passed
between Buck and myself.
Scanning McAuley's outfit the next morning I was quite troubled to
start out with him, his teams being light, principally cows, and thin in
flesh, with wagons apparently light and as frail as the teams. But I
soon found that his outfit, like ours, carried no extra weight; that he
knew how to care for a team; and was, withal, an obliging neighbor,
as was fully demonstrated on many trying occasions as we traveled
in company for more than a thousand miles, until his road to
California parted from ours at the big bend of the Bear River.
Of the trip through Iowa little remains to be said further than that
the grass was thin and washy, the roads muddy and slippery, and
weather execrable, although May had been ushered in long before
we reached the little Mormon town of Kanesville (now Council
Bluffs), a few miles above where we crossed the Missouri River.
 CHAPTER V.
CROSSING THE MISSOURI.
"What on earth is that?" exclaimed Margaret McAuley, as we
approached the ferry landing a few miles below where Omaha now
stands.
"It looks for all the world like a great big white flatiron," answered
Eliza, the sister, "doesn't it, Mrs. Meeker?" But, leaving the women
folks to their similes, we drivers turned our attention more to the
teams as we encountered the roads "cut all to pieces" on account of
the concentrated travel as we neared the landing and the solid
phalanx of wagons that formed the flatiron of white ground.
We here encountered a sight indeed long to be remembered. The
"flatiron of white" that Eliza had seen proved to be wagons with their
tongues pointing to the landing—a center train with other parallel
trains extending back in the rear and gradually covering a wider
range the farther back from the river one would go. Several hundred
wagons were thus closely interlocked completely blocking the
approach to the landing by new arrivals, whether in companies or
single. All around about were camps of all kinds, from those without
covering of any kind to others with comfortable tents, nearly all
seemingly intent on merrymaking, while here and there were small
groups engaged in devotional services. We soon ascertained these
camps contained the outfits, in great part, of the wagons in line in
the great white flatiron, some of whom had been there for two
weeks with no apparent probability of securing an early crossing. At
the turbulent river front the muddy waters of the Missouri had
already swallowed up three victims, one of whom I saw go under
the drift of a small island as I stood near his shrieking wife the first
day we were there. Two scows were engaged in crossing the
wagons and teams. In this case the stock had rushed to one side of
the boat, submerged the gunwale, and precipitated the whole
contents into the dangerous river. One yoke of oxen, having reached
the farther shore, deliberately entered the river with a heavy yoke on
and swam to the Iowa side, and were finally saved by the helping
hands of the assembled emigrants.
"What shall we do?" was passed around, without answer. Tom
McAuley was not yet looked upon as a leader, as was the case later.
The sister Margaret, a most determined maiden lady, the oldest of
the party and as resolute and brave as the bravest, said to build a
boat. But of what should we build it? While this question was under
consideration and a search for material made, one of our party, who
had gotten across the river in search of timber, discovered a scow,
almost completely buried, on the sandpit opposite the landing, "only
just a small bit of railing and a corner of the boat visible." The report
seemed too good to be true. The next thing to do was to find the
owner, which in a search of a day we did, eleven miles down the
river. "Yes, if you will stipulate to deliver the boat safely to me after
crossing your five wagons and teams, you can have it," said the
owner, and a bargain was closed right then and there. My! but didn't
we make the sand fly that night from that boat? By morning we
could begin to see the end. Then busy hands began to cut a landing
on the perpendicular sandy bank on the Iowa side; others were
preparing sweeps, and all was bustle and stir and one might say
excitement.
By this time it had become noised around that another boat would
be put on to ferry people over, and we were besieged with
applications from detained emigrants. Finally, the word coming to
the ears of the ferrymen, they were foolish enough to undertake to
prevent us from crossing ourselves. A writ of replevin or some other
process was issued, I never knew exactly what, directing the sheriff
to take possession of the boat when landed, and which he
attempted to do. I never before nor since attempted to resist an
officer of the law, nor joined to accomplish anything by force outside
the pale of the law, but when that sheriff put in an appearance, and
we realized what it meant, there wasn't a man in our party that did
not run for his gun to the nearby camp, and it is needless to add
that we did not need to use them. As if by magic a hundred guns
were in sight. The sheriff withdrew, and the crossing went peaceably
on till all our wagons were safely landed. But we had another danger
to face; we learned that there would be an attempt made to take
the boat from us, not as against us, but as against the owner, and
but for the adroit management of McAuley and my brother Oliver
(who had joined us) we would have been unable to fulfill our
engagements with the owner.
 CHAPTER VI.
OUT ON THE PLAINS.
When we stepped foot upon the right bank of the Missouri River
we were outside the pale of civil law. We were within the Indian
country where no organized civil government existed. Some people
and some writers have assumed that each man was "a law unto
himself" and free to do his own will, dependent, of course, upon his
physical ability to enforce it.
Nothing could be further from the facts than this assumption, as
evil-doers soon found out to their discomfort. No general
organization for law and order was effected, but the American
instinct for fair play and for a hearing prevailed; so that while there
was not mob law, the law of self-preservation asserted itself, and the
mandates of the level-headed old men prevailed; "a high court from
which there was no appeal," but "a high court in the most exalted
sense; a senate composed of the ablest and most respected fathers
of the emigration, exercising both legislative and judicial power; and
its laws and decisions proved equal to any worthy of the high trust
reposed in it," so tersely described by Applegate as to conditions
when the first great train moved out on the Plains in 1843, that I
quote his words as describing conditions in 1852. There was this
difference, however, in the emigration of 1843—all, by agreement,
belonged to one or the other of the two companies, the "cow
column" or the "light brigade," while with the emigrants of 1852 it is
safe to say that more than half did not belong to large companies, or
one might say any organized company. But this made no difference,
for when an occasion called for action a "high court" was convened,
and woe-betide the man that would undertake to defy its mandates
after its deliberations were made public.
 One incident, well up on the Sweetwater, will illustrate the spirit of
determination of the sturdy old men (elderly, I should say, as no
young men were allowed to sit in these councils) of the Plains, while
laboring under stress of grave personal cares and with many
personal bereavements. A murder had been committed, and it was
clear that the motive was robbery. The suspect had a large family
and was traveling along with the moving column. Men had
volunteered to search for the missing man and finally found the
proof pointing to the guilt of the suspect. A council of twelve men
was called and deliberated until the second day, meanwhile holding
the murderer safely within their grip. What were they to do? Here
was a wife and four little children depending upon this man for their
lives; what would become of his family if justice was meted out to
him? Soon there came an under-current of what might be termed
public opinion—that it was probably better to forego punishment
than to endanger the lives of the family; but the council would not
be swerved from its resolution, and at sundown of the third day the
criminal was hung in the presence of the whole camp, including the
family, but not until ample provisions had been made to insure the
safety of the family by providing a driver to finish the journey. I
came so near seeing this that I did see the ends of the wagon
tongues in the air and the rope dangling therefrom, but I have
forgotten the names of the parties, and even if I had not, would be
loath to make them public.
From necessity, murder was punishable with death; but stealing,
by a tacit understanding, with whipping, which, when inflicted by
one of those long ox lashes in the hands of an expert, would bring
the blood from the victim's back at every stroke. Minor offenses, or
differences generally, took the form of arbitration, the decision of
which each party would abide by, as if emanating from a court of
law.
Lawlessness was not common on the Plains, no more so than in
the communities from which the great body of the emigrants had
been drawn; in fact, not so much so, as punishment was swift and
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