FullReads

"Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuit are ‘most done. "

Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head and slowly rose. The faint clouds in the west were getting a superb flame color above and a misty purple below, and the sun had shot them with lances of yellow light. As the air grew denser with moisture, the sounds of neighboring life began to reach the ear. Children screamed and laughed, and afar off a woman was singing a lullaby. The rattle of wagons and voices of men speaking to their teams multiplied. Ducks in a neighboring lowland were quacking. The whole scene took hold upon Seagraves with irresistible power.

"It is American," he exclaimed.’No other land or time can match this mellow air, this wealth of color, much less the strange social conditions of life on this sunlit Dakota prairie. "

Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn’t let his biscuit spoil or go without proper attention.

"Say, ain’t y’ comin’ t’ grub?" he asked impatiently.

"Th a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at the scene. "I want one more look at the landscape. "

"Landscape be blessed! If you’d been breakin’ all day–Come, take that stool an’ draw up. "

"No; I’ll take the candle box. "

"Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull driver. "

Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious-looking stool and drew up to the table, which was a flat broad box nailed up against the side of the wall, with two strips of board nailed at the outer corners for legs.

"How’s that f’r a layout?" Rob inquired proudly.

"Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches and sardines and cheese. Why, this is–is–prodigal. "

"It ain’t nothin’ else. "

Rob was from one of the finest counties of Wisconsin, over toward Milwaukee. He was of German parentage, a middle-sized, cheery, wide-awake, good-looking young fellow–a typical claimholder. He was always confident, jovial, and full of plans for the future. He had dug his own well, built his own shanty, washed and mended his own clothing. He could do anything, and do it well. He had a fine field of wheat, and was finishing the plowing of his entire quarter section.

"This is what I call settin’ under a feller’s own vine an’ fig tree"–after Seagraves’s compliments–"an’ I like it. I’m my own boss. No man can say ‘come here’ ‘n’ ‘go there’ to me. I get up when I’m a min’ to, an’ go t’ bed when I’m a min’ t’. "

"Some drawbacks, I s’pose?"

"Yes. Mice, f’r instance, give me a devilish lot o’ trouble. They get into my flour barrel, eat up my cheese, an’ fall into my well. But it ain’t no use t’ swear. "

"The rats and the mlce they made such a strife He had to go to London to buy him a wife,"

quoted Seagraves. "Don’t blush. I’ve probed your secret thought. "

"Well, to tell the honest truth," said Rob a little sheepishly, leaning across the table, "I ain’t satisfied with my style o’ cookin’. It’s good, but a little too plain, y’ know. I’d like a change. It ain’t much fun to break all day and then go to work an’ cook y’r own supper. "

"No, I should say not. "

"This fall I’m going back to Wisconsin. Girls are thick as huckleberries back there, and I’m goin’ t’ bring one back, now you hear me. "

"Good! That’s the plan," laughed Seagraves, amused at a certain timid and apprehensive look in his companion’s eye. "Just think what a woman ‘d do to put this shanty in shape; and think how nice it would be to take her arm and saunter out after supper, and look at the farm, and plan and lay out gardens and paths, and tend the chickens!"