lo" of our
song might, at any moment, present themselves,--but they did not, and my
father took no account even of the marsh fowl.

"Forward march!" he shouted, and on we went.

Hour after hour he pushed into the west, the heads of his tired horses
hanging ever lower, and on my mother's face the shadow deepened, but her
chieftain's voice cheerily urging his team lost nothing of its clarion
resolution. He was in his element. He loved this shelterless sweep of
prairie. This westward march entranced him, I think he would have gladly
kept on until the snowy wall of the Rocky Mountains met his eyes, for he
was a natural explorer.

Sunset came at last, but still he drove steadily on through the sparse
settlements. Just at nightfall we came to a beautiful little stream, and
stopped to let the horses drink. I heard its rippling, reassuring song
on the pebbles. Thereafter all is dim and vague to me until my mother
called out sharply, "Wake up, children! Here we are!"

Struggling to my feet I looked about me. Nothing could be seen but the
dim form of a small house.--On every side the land melted into
blackness, silent and without boundary.

Driving into the yard, father hastily unloaded one of the wagons and
taking mother and Harriet and Jessie drove away to spend the night with
Uncle David who had preceded us, as I now learned, and was living on a
farm not far away. My brother and I were left to camp as best we could
with the hired man.

Spreading a rude bed on the floor, he told us to "hop in" and in ten
minutes we were all fast asleep.

* * * * *

The sound of a clattering poker awakened me next morning and when I
opened my sleepy eyes and looked out a new world displayed itself before
me.

The cabin faced a level plain with no tree in sight. A mile away to the
west stood a low stone house and immediately in front of us opened a
half-section of unfenced sod. To the north, as far as I could see, the
land billowed like a russet ocean, with scarcely a roof to fleck its
lonely spread.--I cannot say that I liked or disliked it. I merely
marvelled at it, and while I wandered about the yard, the hired man
scorched some cornmeal mush in a skillet and this with some butter and
gingerbread, made up my first breakfast in Mitchell County.

An hour or two later father and mother and the girls returned and the
work of setting up the stove and getting the furniture in place began.
In a very short t