Part 7 (1/2)
There the boys sat, hugely enjoying the situation, while the others were loading the wagon and yoking the oxen on the other side. The lads could hear the cheery sounds of the men talking, although they could not see them through the trees that lined the farther bank of the river. The flow of the stream made a ceaseless lapping against the brink of the sh.o.r.e. A party of catbirds quarrelled sharply in the thicket hard by; quail whistled in the underbrush of the adjacent creek, and overhead a solitary eagle circled slowly around as if looking down to watch these rude invaders of the privacy of the dominion that had existed ever since the world began.
Hugging his knees in measureless content, as they sat in the gra.s.s by the river, Sandy asked, almost in a whisper, ”Have you ever been homesick since we left Dixon, Oscar?”
”Just once, Sandy; and that was yesterday when I saw those nice-looking ladies at the fort out walking in the morning with their children. That was the first sight that looked like home since we crossed the Missouri.”
”Me, too,” answered Sandy, soberly. ”But this is just about as fine as anything can be. Only think of it, Oscar! There are buffalo and antelopes within ten or fifteen miles of here. I know, for Younkins told me so. And Indians,--not wild Indians, but tame ones that are at peace with the whites. It seems too good to have happened to us; doesn't it, Oscar?”
Once more the wagon was blocked up for a difficult ford, the lighter and more perishable articles of its load being packed into a dugout, or canoe hollowed from a sycamore log, which was the property of Younkins, and used only at high stages of the water. The three men guided the wagon and oxen across while Charlie, stripped to his s.h.i.+rt, pushed the loaded dugout carefully over, and the two boys on the other bank, full of the importance of the event, received the solitary voyager, unloaded the canoe, and then transferred the little cargo to the wagon. The caravan took its way up the rolling ground of the prairie to the log-cabin. Willing hands unloaded and took into the house the tools, provisions, and clothes that const.i.tuted their all, and, before the sun went down, the settlers were at home.
While in Manhattan, they had supplied themselves with potatoes; at Fort Riley they had bought fresh beef from the sutler. Sandy made a glorious fire in the long-disused fireplace. His father soon had a batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that they had brought with them from home. Charlie's contribution to the repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs.
Younkins. So, with thankful hearts, they gathered around their frugal board and took their first meal in their new home.
When supper was done and the cabin, now lighted by the scanty rays of two tallow candles, had been made tidy for the night, Oscar took out his violin, and, after much needed tuning, struck into the measure of wild, warbling ”Dundee.” All hands took the hint, and all voices were raised once more to the words of Whittier's song of the ”Kansas Emigrants.” Perhaps it was with new spirit and new tenderness that they sang,--
”No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where the pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun!”
”I don't know what the pilgrim's gonfalon is,” said Sandy, sleepily, ”but I guess it's all right.” The emigrants had crossed the prairies as of old their father had crossed the sea. They were now at home in the New West. The night fell dark and still about their lonely cabin as, with hope and trust, they laid them down to peaceful dreams.
CHAPTER IX.
SETTING THE STAKES.
”We mustn't let any gra.s.s grow under our feet, boys,” was Mr. Aleck Howell's energetic remark, next morning, when the little party had finished their first breakfast in their new home.
”That means work, I s'pose,” replied Oscar, turning a longing glance to his violin hanging on the side of the cabin, with a broken string crying for repairs.
”Yes, and hard work, too,” said his father, noting the lad's look.
”Luckily for us, Brother Aleck,” he continued, ”our boys are not afraid of work. They have been brought up to it, and although I am thinking they don't know much about the sort of work that we shall have to put in on these beautiful prairies, I guess they will buckle down to it. Eh?” and the loving father turned his look from the gra.s.sy and rolling plain to his son's face.
Sandy answered for him. ”Oh, yes, Uncle Charlie, we all like work!
Afraid of work? Why, Oscar and I are so used to it that we would be willing to lie right down by the side of it, and sleep as securely as if it were as harmless as a kitten! Afraid of work? Never you fear 'the Dixon boys who fear no noise'--what's the rest of that song?”
n.o.body knew, and, in the laugh that followed, Mr. Howell suggested that as Younkins was coming over the river to show them the stakes of their new claims, the boys might better set an extra plate at dinner-time. It was very good of Younkins to take so much trouble on their account, and the least they could do was to show him proper hospitality.
”What is all this about stakes and quarter-sections, anyway, father?”
asked Sandy. ”I'm sure I don't know.”
”He doesn't know what quarter-sections are!” shouted Charlie. ”Oh, my!
what an ignoramus!”
”Well, what is a quarter-section, as you are so knowing?” demanded Sandy. ”I don't believe you know yourself.”
”It is a quarter of a section of public land,” answered the lad.
”Every man or single woman of mature age--I think that is what the books say--who doesn't own several hundred acres of land elsewhere (I don't know just how many) is ent.i.tled to enter on and take up a quarter of a section of unoccupied public land, and have it for a homestead. That's all,” and Charlie looked to his father for approval.
”Pretty good, Charlie,” said his uncle. ”How many acres are there in a quarter-section of land?”
”Yes, how many acres in a quarter of a section?” shouted Sandy, who saw that his brother hesitated. ”Speak up, my little man, and don't be afraid!”