arefree and
glowing with the happiness which streams from perfect health and
unquestioning faith. If any shadow drifted across this sunny year it
fell from a haunting sense of the impermanency of my leisure. Neither
Burton nor I had an ache or a pain. We had no fear and cherished no
sorrow, and we were both comparatively free from the lover's almost
intolerable longing. Our loves were hardly more than admirations.

As I project myself back into those days I re-experience the keen joy I
took in the downpour of vivid sunlight, in the colorful clouds of
evening, and in the song of the west wind harping amid the maple leaves.
The earth was new, the moonlight magical, the dawns miraculous. I shiver
with the boy's solemn awe in the presence of beauty. The little
recitation rooms, dusty with floating chalk, are wide halls of romance
and the voices of my girl classmates (even though their words are
algebraic formulas), ring sweet as bells across the years.

* * * * *

During the years '79 and '80, while Burton and I had been living our
carefree jocund life at the Seminary, a series of crop failures had
profoundly affected the county, producing a feeling of unrest and
bitterness in the farmers which was to have a far-reaching effect on my
fortunes as well as upon those of my fellows. For two years the crop had
been almost wholly destroyed by chinch bugs.

The harvest of '80 had been a season of disgust and disappointment to us
for not only had the pestiferous mites devoured the grain, they had
filled our stables, granaries, and even our kitchens with their
ill-smelling crawling bodies--and now they were coming again in added
billions. By the middle of June they swarmed at the roots of the
wheat--innumerable as the sands of the sea. They sapped the growing
stalks till the leaves turned yellow. It was as if the field had been
scorched, even the edges of the corn showed signs of blight. It was
evident that the crop was lost unless some great change took place in
the weather, and many men began to offer their land for sale.

Naturally the business of grain-buying had suffered with the decline of
grain-growing, and my father, profoundly discouraged by the outlook,
sold his share in the elevator and turned his face toward the free lands
of the farther west. He became again the pioneer.

DAKOTA was the magic word. The "Jim River Valley" was now the "land of
delight," where "herds of deer and buffalo