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On this side of the Jah There are cotton-wood hedges along the road, the trees 10 inches through and 35 or 40 feet tall But it all seerounds by the river
10 o’clock It is 101° in the shade in the wagon, and hardly a breath of air
At 11 o’clock, 9 miles from Yankton, we stopped at a windmill to water the horses The man ned the house told us he paid 5,000 for three 80’s, without a building
Not far from Yankton we crossed a bone-dry creek bed with the most desolate barren bluffs on each side Covered with stones and the grass dry and brown, they looked like great drifts of sand that so
We reached Yankton at 4 o’clock Drove by the insane asylus look nice and they stand in the e farm of acres and acres of corn and potatoes Manly wanted to stop and go through the asylum but I could not bear to, so we did not We passed by the Yankton College, the buildings are very nice
I areatly disappointed in Yankton, it is a stick in the mud We drove all over the town to find a little feed for the teams, went to the mill and the elevator and the feed stores, and finally found a couple of sacks of ground feed but not a bit of flax in the whole town
= Flaxseed was indispensable first aid to hurts and -hot flaxseed poultice holds hotter heat longer than a bread-and-milk one, and usually it works better than layers of cold vinegar-and-brown-paper RWL
There were no green vegetables, nor any figs nor dates in the grocery stores It would be a blessing to Yankton if Carpenter would move down here, or if folks in Yankton would send to De Smet for what they need They have a number of elevators, 2 or 3 mills, and 6 feed stores, but we carried the most of the feed away in two sacks
I gotfor feed all over town that Mr Cooley got to the ferry first Mrs Cooley and Paul crossed the river, then the ferry ca just as we drove down to the landing at 6 o’clock and while aiting for it to co storm came up It was not rain, only wind and dust
We had to face the river to keep the wagon’s back to the wind so that it would not be blown over The wind lifted the hind wheels twice before Manly could get them roped down The ferryman did not like to try to cross the river in the storm He waited on the other side until the bloas over, and ere afraid he would not cross again that night But he did
= When the rear wheels lifted as if the wagon were going end over end into the river,the reins in entled the nervous horses, I craned around the edge of the side-curtain to see what round, and tying a wheel to it with the picket rope Behind us was a covered wagon, behind it another, and another As far as I could see, covered wagons stood one beyond another in a long, long line Behind theh over half the sky, a yelloave of dust was curling and coht of Dakota” RWL
Where we crossed the Missouri it is one mile wide, very nasty andMuddy, and since I have seen the dust blowing into it I do not think it strange that it islike as beautiful as the Jim
Pet made no fuss at all at the ferry, but drove onto it nicely, stood as quiet as could be, and calmly drove off it Her colt Little Pet ran onto it loose and stood beside her as still as a mouse
About a mile from the river we camped in woods Temperature 98°
July 24