that he might meet some prowling wolf, or other beast, in the
darkness; and when he was very late, she would be sure to think he
was lost, and would ring her house-bell, which consisted of a tin pan,
on which she would drum vigorously with the stove-lifter. She said
he would recognize that sound, she thought, at a great distance.

But the four weeks went by, and on account of the difficulty of
getting lumber, and other necessary articles, the roof was still
unshingled, and the floor only half laid. The wife, like most women,
had a very good memory for dates. The log cabin they occupied was
open, and the prairie winds cold and piercing, and for a few days she
had been quite ill; but that morning, after her unsuspicious husband
had left for his joinering, Tom might have been seen guiding a yoke of
cattle, attached to a cart, into the enclosure, which, after much
"geeing" and "gee-hawing," he managed to make stand before the door.

"Charlie," said he, as that urchin made his appearance from the inside
of the cart, "you stand by the cattle while I put the things aboard."

And bringing out a barrel filled with crockery and other things, which
Mrs. Payson had clandestinely packed for the occasion, and the
wash-boiler full of eatables, and hanging the chairs over the cart
stakes, he took down the bedsteads, and placed them in a manner that
was highly satisfactory to the energetic minister's wife, and tying up
the bed-clothes in great bundles, deposited them also; and saying to
Mrs. Payson, "I shall have to fix an easy place for you to ride, as
you've been sick," he laid the hard beds in the empty space which he
had left for that purpose in the cart, with the feather beds above,
saying,--

"There, you won't feel the motion much now;" and assisting her to
mount, she was enthroned on her downy seat on the top of the load,
with the children in high glee by her side.

The steers, which were notoriously unruly, as if aware that they had a
minister's wife aboard, behaved with becoming decorum under Tom's wise
supervision.

Now, it chanced that some careless hunter, firing into the dry prairie
grass on the other side of the town, had started a fire. Mrs. Payson
had noticed in the morning that there was a smell of burning in the
air, and a hazy appearance, but had attached no particular importance
to it; but as they approached the town, a scene of great magnificence
burst upon her. The fires, driven with velocity before the win