holding. And now you've come and all the big
piece of prairie soil that is your papa's and mamma's now will be yours
some day. I hope you'll want to stay here."

A stab of pain thrust him deeply as he remembered his own father and
understood for the first time what Francis Aydelot must have felt for him.
And then he remembered his mother's sacrifice and breadth of view.

"Oh, Thaine, will you want to leave us some day?" he said softly, gazing
down into the baby's big dark eyes. "Heaven give me breadth and courage
and memory, too," he added, "when that time comes not to be unkind; but to
be brave to let you go. Only, Thaine, there's no bigger place to go than
to a big, fine Kansas farm. Oh! we fathers are all alike. What Clover
Creek was to Francis Aydelot, Grass River is to me. Will it be given to
you to see bigger things?"

Thaine Aydelot crowed and stretched his little legs and threw out his
hands.

"Thaine, there are no bigger things than the gifts of the soil. I may
only win it, but you can find its hundredfold of increase. See, yonder
comes your mother. Not the pretty, dainty Virginia girl I brought here as
my bride. But I tell you truly, baby boy, she will always be handsome,
because--you wouldn't understand if I told you, but you will some day."

"Oh, Asher, the new baby is splendid, and Mrs. Bennington is ever so
well," Virginia said, coming up to where he sat waiting for her. "They
call her Josephine after Mr. Bennington's mother. Thaine will never be
lonely here, as we have been. After all, it is not the little graves alone
that anchor us anywhere, for we can take memory with us wherever we go; it
is the children living, as well, that hold our hearthstones fast and build
a real community, even in a wilderness. We are just ready to begin now.
The real story of the prairie is the story of the second generation. The
real romance out here will be Thaine Aydelot's romance, for he was born
here."

CHAPTER IX

THE BEGINNING OF SERVICE

Amid all the din
Of the everyday battle some peace may begin,
Like the silence of God in its regal content,
Till we learn what the lesson of yesterday meant.

Hans Wyker had managed skillfully when he pulled the prospective county
seat of Wolf county up Big Wolf Creek to Wykerton, a town he hoped to
build after his own ideals. And his ideals had only one symbol, namely,
the dollar sign. Hans had congr