e
blast lay hard upon it, and now and again the faint fine crystals came
sifting down upon my face,--driven beneath the shingles by the tempest.
At last I lit my oil lamp and shivered in my robe till dawn. I felt none
of the exultation of a "king in fairyland" nor that of a "lord of the
soil."

The morning came, bright with sun but with the thermometer forty degrees
below zero. It was so cold that the horses refused to face the northwest
wind. I could not hitch them to the sleigh until I had blanketed them
both beneath their harness; even then they snorted and pawed in terror.
At last, having succeeded in hooking the traces I sprang in and,
wrapping the robe about me, pushed eastward with all speed, seeking food
and fire.

This may be taken as a turning point in my career, for this experience
(followed by two others almost as severe) permanently chilled my
enthusiasm for pioneering the plain. Never again did I sing "Sunset
Regions" with the same exultant spirit. "O'er the hills in legions,
boys," no longer meant sunlit savannahs, flower meadows and deer-filled
glades. The mingled "wood and prairie land" of the song was gone and
Uncle Sam's domain, bleak, semi-arid, and wind-swept, offered little
charm to my imagination. From that little cabin on the ridge I turned my
face toward settlement, eager to escape the terror and the loneliness of
the treeless sod. I began to plan for other work in other airs.

Furthermore, I resented the conditions under which my mother lived and
worked. Our home was in a small building next to the shop, and had all
the shortcomings of a cabin and none of its charm. It is true nearly all
our friends lived in equal discomfort, but it seemed to me that mother
had earned something better. Was it for this she had left her home in
Iowa. Was she never to enjoy a roomy and comfortable dwelling?

She did not complain and she seldom showed her sense of discomfort. I
knew that she longed for the friends and neighbors she had left behind,
and yet so far from being able to help her I was even then planning to
leave her.

In a sullen rage I endured the winter and when at last the sun began to
ride the sky with fervor and the prairie cock announced the spring, hope
of an abundant crop, the promise of a new railroad, the incoming of
jocund settlers created in each of us a confidence which expressed
itself in a return to the land. With that marvellous faith which marks
the husbandmen, we went forth once