," cried little Benny, as the vast prairie burst on his
sight, "see what a great big farm somebody has got! But where does he
live? I don't see any house."

"And the fences, apple, peach, and pear trees?" said Anne.

"It is not a farm; it's a big pasture kept on purpose to feed buffaloes
and deer in," said Martin.

"You are all wrong," retorted Lewis, "for though buffaloes and deer do
feed on the prairie, it is not kept for them alone; it has always been
so--trees will not grow on it."

"You, too, are wrong, Lewis," said Mr. Duncan. "Though it is true trees
will not grow on the prairie now, yet it was not always so. Geologists
tell us that the vegetable growth, some thousand years ago was, in many
respects, different from what now covers the solid surface of our
earth. Changes of temperature and constituents of soil are going on
from age to age, and correspondent changes take place in the vegetable
kingdom. Over large tracks, once green with ferns, stately trees have
succeeded, followed in their turn, in the course of ages, by grosser
and other herbaceous plants."

"According to that theory, after a regular course of time has elapsed,
these rank grasses will be succeeded by some ether form of vegetable
growth," remarked Sidney.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Duncan. "When one class of trees has exhausted
the soil of appropriate pabulum, and filled it with an excrement which,
in time, it came to loathe, another of a different class sprang up in
its place, luxuriated on the excrement and decay of its predecessor,
and in time has given way to a successor destined to the same ultimate
fate. Thus, one after another, the stately tribes of the forest have
arisen, flourished, and fell, until the soil has become exhausted of
the proper food for trees, and become fitted for the growth of
herbaceous plants."

After pitching their camp that night, the children in rambling round
it, came to one of those landmarks with which the prairies are so
thickly studded along the different trails--_a grave_. Saddened at the
thought of any one dying in that lonely place, they gathered around it,
wondering if the hand of affection soothed his last, his darkest hour,
if tears bedewed his resting place, or whether he died unmourned,
unwept, hurried with unseemly haste beneath the sod, and only
remembered by a mother, wife or sister, who a thousand miles away was
wondering why the absent one, or tidings of him, came not.

The children assemble