"I'll build some rooms on, and a kitchen, and we can surely get along.

It's the healthiest place in the world for children, they tell me." So after a hearty handshake with Captain Mellon, who had taken such good care of me on my week's voyage up river, I being almost the only passenger, I put my foot once more on the shores of old Ehrenberg, and we wended our way towards the blank white walls of the Government house.
I was glad to be back, and content to wait.
So work was begun immediately on the kitchen.

My first stipulation was, that the new rooms were to have wooden floors; for, although the Cocopah Charley kept the adobe floors in perfect condition, by sprinkling them down and sweeping them out every morning, they were quite impossible, especially where it concerned white dresses and children, and the little sharp rocks in them seemed to be so tiring to the feet.
Life as we Americans live it was difficult in Ehrenberg.

I often said: "Oh! if we could only live as the Mexicans live, how easy it would be!" For they had their fire built between some stones piled up in their yard, a piece of sheet iron laid over the top: this was the cooking-stove.

A pot of coffee was made in the morning early, and the family sat on the low porch and drank it, and ate a biscuit.