sional Spanish
phrases which he used afforded me an indefinable delight. It was
unthinkable that I should ever see an _arroyo_ but I permitted myself to
dream of it while he talked.

I think he must have encouraged my sister in her growing desire for an
education, for in the autumn after his visit she entered the Cedar
Valley Seminary at Osage and her going produced in me a desire to
accompany her. I said nothing of it at the time, for my father gave but
reluctant consent to Harriet's plan. A district school education seemed
to him ample for any farmer's needs.

Many of our social affairs were now connected with "the Grange." During
these years on the new farm while we were busied with breaking and
fencing and raising wheat, there had been growing up among the farmers
of the west a social organization officially known as The Patrons of
Husbandry. The places of meeting were called "Granges" and very
naturally the members were at once called "Grangers."

My father was an early and enthusiastic member of the order, and during
the early seventies its meetings became very important dates on our
calendar. In winter "oyster suppers," with debates, songs and essays,
drew us all to the Burr Oak Grove school-house, and each spring, on the
twelfth of June, the Grange Picnic was a grand "turn-out." It was almost
as well attended as the circus.

We all looked forward to it for weeks and every young man who owned a
top-buggy got it out and washed and polished it for the use of his best
girl, and those who were not so fortunate as to own "a rig" paid high
tribute to the livery stable of the nearest town. Others, less able or
less extravagant, doubled teams with a comrade and built a "bowery
wagon" out of a wagon-box, and with hampers heaped with food rode away
in state, drawn by a four or six-horse team. It seemed a splendid and
daring thing to do, and some day I hoped to drive a six-horse bowery
wagon myself.

The central place of meeting was usually in some grove along the Big
Cedar to the west and south of us, and early on the appointed day the
various lodges of our region came together one by one at convenient
places, each one moving in procession and led by great banners on which
the women had blazoned the motto of their home lodge. Some of the
columns had bands and came preceded by far faint strains of music, with
marshals in red sashes galloping to and fro in fine assumption of
military command.

It was grand, it was in