nts of Lincoln and
Demosthenes.

Sundays brought a special sweet relief that summer, a note of finer
poetry into all our lives, for often after a bath behind the barn we put
on clean shirts and drove away to Osage to meet George and Mitchell, or
went to church to see some of the girls we had admired at the Seminary.
On other Sabbaths we returned to our places at the Burr Oak
school-house, enjoying as we used to do, a few hours' forgetfulness of
the farm.

My father, I am glad to say, never insisted upon any religious
observance on the part of his sons, and never interfered with any
reasonable pleasure even on Sunday. If he made objection to our trips it
was usually on behalf of the cattle. "Go where you please," he often
said, "only get back in time to do the milking." Sometimes he would ask,
"Don't you think the horses ought to have a rest as well as yourselves?"
He was a stern man but a just man, and I am especially grateful to him
for his non-interference with my religious affairs.

All that summer and all the fall I worked like a hired man, assuming in
addition the responsibilities of being boss. I bound grain until my arms
were raw with briars and in stacking-time I wallowed round and round
upon my knees, building great ricks of grain, taking obvious pride in
the skill which this task required until my trousers, reinforced at the
knees, bagged ungracefully and my hands, swollen with the act of
grappling the heavy bundles as they were thrown to me, grew horny and
brown and clumsy, so that I quite despaired of ever being able to write
another letter. I was very glad not to have my Seminary friends see me
in this unlovely condition.

However, I took a well-defined pride in stacking, for it was a test of
skill. It was clean work. Even now, as I ride a country lane, and see
men at work handling oats or hay, I recall the pleasurable sides of work
on the farm and long to return to it.

The radiant sky of August and September on the prairie was a never
failing source of delight to me. Nature seemed resting, opulent,
self-satisfied and honorable. Every phase of the landscape indicated a
task fulfilled. There were still and pulseless days when slaty-blue
clouds piled up in the west and came drifting eastward with thunderous
accompaniment, to break the oppressive heat and leave the earth cool and
fresh from having passed. There were misty, windy days when the
sounding, southern breeze swept the yellow stubble like a scy