Restraint in such matters was the rule. If you said,
"It is a fine day," or "The night is as clear as a bell," you had gone
quite as far as the proprieties permitted. Love was also a forbidden
word. You might say, "I love pie," but to say "I love Bettie," was
mawkish if not actually improper.

Caresses or terms of endearment even between parents and their children
were very seldom used. People who said "Daddy dear," or "Jim dear," were
under suspicion. "They fight like cats and dogs when no one else is
around" was the universal comment on a family whose members were very
free of their terms of affection. We were a Spartan lot. We did not
believe in letting our wives and children know that they were an
important part of our contentment.

Social changes were in progress. We held no more quilting bees or
barn-raisings. Women visited less than in Wisconsin. The work on the new
farms was never ending, and all teams were in constant use during week
days. The young people got together on one excuse or another, but their
elders met only at public meetings.

Singing, even among the young people was almost entirely confined to
hymn-tunes. The new Moody and Sankey Song Book was in every home. _Tell
Me the Old Old Story_ did not refer to courtship but to salvation, and
_Hold the Fort for I am Coming_ was no longer a signal from Sherman, but
a Message from Jesus. We often spent a joyous evening singing _O, Bear
Me Away on Your Snowy Wings_, although we had no real desire to be taken
"to our immortal home." Father no longer asked for _Minnie Minturn_ and
_Nellie Wildwood_,--but his love for Smith's _Grand March_ persisted and
my sister Harriet was often called upon to play it for him while he
explained its meaning. The war was passing into the mellow, reminiscent
haze of memory and he loved the splendid pictures which this descriptive
piece of martial music recalled to mind. So far as we then knew his
pursuit of the Sunset was at an end.

CHAPTER XIII

Boy Life on the Prairie

The snows fell deep in February and when at last the warm March winds
began to blow, lakes developed with magical swiftness in the fields, and
streams filled every swale, transforming the landscape into something
unexpected and enchanting. At night these waters froze, bringing fields
of ice almost to our door. We forgot all our other interests in the joy
of the games which we played thereon at every respite from school, or
from the wood-pile, fo