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Show Chapter Five I'm having a hard day today. I don't want to complain for Mama's got enough worry and Papa just doesn't know what to do, but sometimes ray legs ache so bad, I could cry. I keep trying to straighten my legs--if I could only stand up! The days seem so long. They weren't like that on our way here. How fast time moved along then! There was something new to see every day, and even people to stop and talk to and buy milk and butter from. But the best days were when the Colonel rode in to see us . . . The campfire gathering the night after Diena died had been subdued. People seemed to whisper or speak softly and there was an absence of joviality that had earmarked the wait at Ham's Fork. But into the quiet group that night rode an imposing figure. Astride a big horse was a big man. He wore a fringed buckskin jacket and beneath a large, white Stetson hat, he wore his blond hair long. It curled slightly at the collar of his jacket and his face and chin were covered with a light-colored beard, trimmed neatly to a point. He greeted Capt. Taggart and Bro. Simmons, and talked animatedly with them while Nettie's eyes opened wide and drank the picture in. "Who is that," was obviously the question Nettie would have asked had she been able to gather her thoughts sufficiently, but Nettie Taggart |
