Gone to Texas: From Virginia to Adventure - Pasta blanda

It's a long way from western Virginia to Texas, but recently orphaned, fourteen-year-old Ephraim Darter is determined to make the trip. He wants to find adventure, not be a farmer for the rest of his life. He sets out one spring morning in 1850 with a good horse named General, a family keepsake clock no one else thinks will survive the journey intact, and a new friend who knows more about Latin grammar than traveling by horse. The boys encounter flooded rivers, bedbug-ridden inns, and a rascally medicine man who steals the precious clock. Ephraim is determined to retrieve his clock and, in the process, experiences a life-changing adventure, far more hair-raising than he ever expected.