A
great deal of contradictory advice was offered, as is usually the case
when people are starting on a voyage or a long railway ride. One friend
wrote to recommend that they should provide themselves with a week's
provisions in advance, and enclosed a list of crackers, jam, potted meats,
tea, fruit, and hardware, which would have made a heavy load for a donkey
or mule to carry. How were poor Clover and Phil to transport such a weight
of things? Another advised against umbrellas and water-proof cloaks,--what
was the use of such things where it never rained?--while a second letter,
received the same day, assured them that thunder and hail storms were
things for which travellers in Colorado must live in a state of continual
preparation. "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" In the end Clover
concluded that it was best to follow the leadings of commonsense and
rational precaution, do about a quarter of what people advised, and leave
the rest undone; and she found that this worked very well.
As they knew so little of the resources of St. Helen's, and there was such
a strong impression prevailing in the family as to its being a rough sort
of newly-settled place, Clover and Katy judged it wise to pack a large
box of stores to go out by freight: oatmeal and arrowroot and beef-extract
and Albert biscuits,--things which Philly ought to have, and which in a
wild region might be hard to come by.
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