Marlee Said She Needed a Cooking Book

 The weather was cold and so was Marlee Ada's cabin. It was made out of logs and there were some places in between the logs that the cold air was getting through. Those little spaces were called chinks. The pioneers would stuff those holes with wedges of wood and a mixture of clay and and sand and grasses. Then they would spread that mixture over the walls to make it so the wind couldn't get in as easy. The only really warm place was by the fireplace. The children would often lay on pallets of quilts by the fireplace.

It was so cold tonight that her pa had let Zeke crawl in bed with her and her sister to be warmer. Her tummy made a growly noise. She was still hungry. The winter seemed like it would never end with the ice and the snow outside and her pa always being sad, Marlee wished that she had a cooking book. Her ma had one, but she couldn't read it. Maybe she could cook for her pa if she had one with pictures. If her new ma would only show up then she just knew things would be better.

Grandma Lu stopped to clear her throat and Marlee said, "I have a new cooking book. Joann gave it to me for my birthday. It has lots of pictures in it. My Grandma B is going to help me cook and bake with it. If I could I would have given it to Marlee Ada in the story. That would have helped her."

Nell and the other travelers followed the ten men that were headed for the area where Marlee Ada and her family lived. The weather was terrible, but the ten men were strong and young and made good use of the things they had read before they started on their trip. One of the reasons besides the weather that the trip was so dangerous was that the area was all prairie. Besides the trees that grew close to the river, there were few landmarks to follow. They had to use a flower in the spring, summer and fall called a compass flower. It's leaves faced north and south perfectly with the sun. They knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west so these very tall stalks; about nine feet tall actually. The Native Americans broke the stalks and chewed the resin for chewing gum and used it for medicine sometimes too. 

This is all well and good, but it was winter time now and the flowers no longer were blooming so the men had a compass. It shows where north, west, east, and south is when you hold it in your hand.

Remember it was snowing and windy so they had to have something to go by because they had never been there before. The pioneers often got lost in those days, but Nell and her fellow travelers did not. They steadily traveled north west through the heat and floods, through the drought and rainstorms, through the cold and snow. The trip nowadays would have taken only about eight hours by car.  It had taken them over three months because of sickness, weather, and having to stop to repair the wagons. The wheels or axles on the wagon would sometimes break and need repaired or replaced. Some wagons were left at the side of the road because they could no longer make the trip.  Years would go by and new travelers going west or north would see the remains of wagons and many many possessions left by the side of the trail. The pioneers would have to leave behind their precious things often just because of a broken wheel that could not be replaced.

Grandma Lu made a little map  to show the children the trip that Nell and her new friends took to get to a land mark called Pilot Rock.