| 182 and seek employment for the winter, but that the Seventies should go on and locate their families in Missouri and be ready to go out and preach the gospel. Nine or ten families therefore obtained places and stopped.
September 14,1838, the camp passed through Springfield, Illinois. Food was very scarce with them, which resulted in some suffering. 2
On the 20th they crossed the Mississippi River, at the town of Louisiana.
Joseph writes of the suffering and distress of the camp as follows:-
"Monday, 24th. The camp was called together and the council informed them of their scanty means, and that there had been a delinquency in consecrating their moneys and goods according to the pattern; that the council had hired large sums of money, for which they were bound, and liable to imprisonment in case of failure, and must wait on the brethren for their pay, and these sums had been expended for the benefit of the camp. They were required to bring forward their goods, which they did, and Elders B. Wilber and D. Carter went forward with the commissary's wagon to sell them.
"The camp went on, and passing through Madisonville (where they were assailed with all kinds of bugbear stories about the 'Mormons,' war, etc.), tented on the west side of the north branch of Salt River, on the encampment that Elder John E. Page had left on Saturday with his Canada Camp. The brethren were told that the Governor was just
2 The camp is sometimes short of food, both for man and beast, and they know what it is to be hungry. Their living for the last one hundred miles has been boiled corn and shaving pudding, which is made of new corn ears shaved upon a jointer or fore plane. It is excellent with milk, butter, or sweetening, and with an occasional mixture of pork, flour, potatoes, pumpkins, melons, etc., makes a comfortable living. The cobs and remaining corn are given to the horses, so that nothing is lost; hence the proverb goes forth in the world, "The Mormons would starve a host of enemies to death, for they will live where everybody else would die."
The camp numbers about two hundred and sixty. There were five hundred and fifteen, but they have been scattered to the four winds; and it is because of selfishness, covetousness, murmurings, and complainings, and not having fulfilled their covenants that they have been thus scattered.-Millennial Star, vol. 16, p. 267.
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