rce,"--there they might
remain for a year or two; then you would be quite sure to find the
immigrant friend looking discontented, and expressing a wish to "sell
his claim."

"It's growing so crowded with folks coming into the country, I can't
go three miles without stumbling against a shanty or a house; and cart
tracks are getting so plenty, I can't stand it. I must pull up stakes,
and go farther on to find a place to breathe in."

And, perchance, realizing a trifle for his claim and improvements,
Dobbin is hitched anew into the crazy old wagon. The broken crockery,
and leaky black tea-pot, and ancient cooking-stove--the pipe of the
latter running up through the wagon-top--are once more aboard, wife
and children packed in, and the uneasy frontiersman is pushing out
again towards solitude.

Tom had been reviewing this bit of family history more in detail, and
much more vividly than we have now done. The result was a feeling of
disgust, and a resolution to break away from such a life, and an
endeavor for something higher.

But what had brought the squatter's son to such a conclusion? The
condition of the family had for some time been unsatisfactory to Tom.
Though brought up in this roving, improvident way, his better nature
often revolted against it; not, however, so strongly and decisively
as now. Still, desires, and even longings, for something better had
flitted through his mind, only to make him moody and irritable.
Doubtless these aspirations were due, in no small measure, to his
mother--a woman much superior to her condition, but who, clinging to
her husband with a pure and changeless love, accepted the privations
of her lot without a murmur. Taken by her marriage from the comforts
and advantages of a good home, she had followed his fortunes "for
better or for worse," having much more of the latter, in a worldly
point of view, than the former. Not that Mr. Jones was a hard or a
dissipated man; but his roving habits, and the deprivations and
poverty they endured, had made her days sad and toil-worn.

Tom, in his tastes, was like his mother. But a new event had recently
occurred. A godly minister, in search of the lost sheep of the
heavenly fold, had made his way into the region, and, the Sabbath
previous to the opening of our sketch, had, in earnest, eloquent
words, preached the gospel to the settlers. The log cabin, in which
the services were held, was only a mile and a half distant, and Tom
and his father, w