After supper that evening, Uncle Kit suggested that we visit the
emigrant camp and see the ladies, which did not altogether meet
with my approval, but rather than be called bashful, I went along
with the crowd. I was now twenty-one years of age, and this was
the first time I had got sight of a white woman since I was
fifteen, this now being the year of 1853.
I had been out in the mountains a long time, and had not had my
hair cut during that time, but took excellent care of it. I always
kept it rolled up in a piece of buckskin, and when unrolled it
would hang down to my waist.
There was a number of young ladies in the train, and they were not
long in learning that I was the most bashful person in the crowd,
and they commenced trying to interest me in conversation. At that
time I only owned two horses, and would have given them both, as
free as the water that runs in the brook, if I could only have
been away from there at that moment. Seeing that I had long hair,
each of them wanted a lock. By this time I had managed to muster
courage enough to begin to talk to them.
I told them that if they would sing a song, they might have a lock
of my hair.
A little, fat Missouri girl, spoke up and said: "Will you let any
one that sings have a lock of your hair?"
I assured her that I would.
"And each of us that sing?" interrupted another young lady.
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