mber anything of England himself, but
as he grew older he liked to hear his father and mother talk about the
old country where he and they had been born, and to which they still
seemed to cling with great affection. Sometimes, as they looked
out-of-doors over the burnt-up prairie round their new home, his father
would tell him about the trim green fields they had left so far behind
them, and say with a sigh, 'Old England was like a _garden_, but this
place is nothing but a _wilderness_!'

Longview was the name of the lonely western village where George
Wilson, his wife, and Jack had lived for eight years, and although we
should not have thought it a particularly nice place, they were very
happy there. Longview was half-way between two large mining towns,
sixty miles apart, and as there was no railway in those parts, the
people going to and from the different mines were obliged to travel by
waggons, and often halted for a night at Longview to break the journey.

It was a very hot and dusty village in summer, as there were no nice
trees to give pleasant shade from the sun, and the staring rows of
wooden houses that formed the streets had no gardens in front to make
them look pretty. In winter it was almost worse, for the cold winds
came sweeping down from the distant mountains and rushed shrieking
across the plains towards the unprotected village. They whirled the
snow into clouds, making big drifts, and whistled round the frame
houses as if threatening to blow them right away.

Jack was used to it, however, and, in spite of the heat and cold, was a
happy little lad. His parents had come to America, in the first place,
because times were so bad in England, and secondly, because Mrs.
Wilson's only sister had emigrated many years before them to Longview,
and had been so anxious to have her relations near her.

Aunt Sue, as Jack called her, had married very young, and accompanied
her husband, Mat Byrne, to the West. He was a miner, and when he
worked got good wages; but he was an idle, thriftless fellow, who soon
got into disfavour with his employers, and a year or two after the
Wilsons came he took to drink, and made sad trouble for his wife and
his three boys. George Wilson had expostulated with him often, and
begged him to be more steady, but Mat was jealous of his honest
brother-in-law, who worked so hard and was fairly comfortable, and
therefore he resented the kind words of advice, and George was obliged
to