of himself. No waiting for the
long processes by which the forests were reclaimed; but a new world with
new processes, new neighbors, new ideas, new opportunities, new
victories easily gained.

Not so easy, Jacobus! In the first place, we Iowa pioneers so ignorant
of our opportunities that we hauled timber a hundred miles with which to
build our houses, when that black sod would have made us better ones,
were also so foolish as to waste a whole year of the time of that land
which panted to produce. To be sure, we grew some sod-corn, and some
sod-potatoes, and sowed some turnips and buckwheat on the new breaking;
but after my hair was gray, I found out, for the first time as we all
did, that a fine crop of flax might have been grown that first year.
Dakota taught us that. But the farmer of old was inured to waiting--and
so we waited until another spring for the sod to rot, and in the
meantime, it grew great crops of tumble-weeds, which in the fall raced
over the plain like scurrying scared wolves, piling up in brown
mountains against every obstacle, and in every hole. If we had only
known these simple things, what would it have saved us! But skill grows
slowly. We were the first prairie generation bred of a line of
foresters, and were a little like the fools that came to Virginia and
Plymouth Colony, who starved in a country filled with food. How many
fool things are we doing now, I wonder, to cause posterity to laugh, as
foolish as the dying of Sir John Franklin in a land where Stefansson
grew fat; many, I guess, as foolish as we did when Magnus Thorkelson and
I were Vandemark Township.

The sod grew too mature for breaking after the first of June, and not
enough time was left for it to rot during the summer; and my cows left
with Mr. Westervelt were on my mind; so I stopped the plow and after
Magnus and I had built my house and made a lot of hay in the marsh, I
began to think of going back after my live stock. I planned to travel
light with one span to Westervelt's, pick up another yoke of cows, go on
to Dubuque for a load of freight for Monterey Centre, and come back,
bringing the rest of my herd with me on the return. When I went to "the
Centre," as we called it, I waited until I saw Grandma Thorndyke go down
to the store, and then tapped at their door. I thought they might want
me to bring them something. They were living in a little house by the
public square, where the great sugar maples stand now. These trees we