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Annie tried hard not to be depressed by the treeless stretches of the Nebraska plains.

“This is different from Illinois,” she ventured once, gently; “it is even different from Iowa.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Jim, enthusiastically, “it is different! It is the finest country in the world! You never feel shut in. You can always see off. I feel at home after I get in Nebraska. I’d choke back where you live, with all those little gullies and the trees everywhere. It’s a mystery to me how farmers have patience to work there.”

Annie opened her eyes. There was evidently more than one way of looking at a question. The farm-houses seemed very low and mean to her, as she looked at them from the window. There were no fences, excepting now and then the inhospitable barbed wire. The door-yards were bleak to her eyes, without the ornamental shrubbery which every farmer in her part of the country was used to tending. The cattle stood unshedded in their corrals. The reapers and binders stood rusting in the dull drizzle.

“How shiftless!” cried Annie, indignantly. “What do these men mean by letting their machinery lie out that way? I should think one winter of lying out would hurt it more than three summers of using.”

“It does. But sheds are not easily had. Lumber is dear.”

“But I should think it would be economy even then.”

“Yes,” he said, “perhaps. But we all do that way out here. It takes some money for a man to be economical with. Some of us haven’t even that much.”

There was a six-mile ride from the station. The horses were waiting, hitched up to a serviceable light wagon, and driven by the “help.” He was a thin young man, with red hair, and he blushed vicariously for Jim and Annie, who were really too entertained with each other, and at the idea of the new life opening up before them, to think anything about blushing. At the station, a number of men insisted on shaking hands with Jim, and being introduced to his wife. They were all bearded, as if shaving were an unnecessary labor, and their trousers were tucked in dusty top-boots, none of which had ever seen blacking. Annie had a sense of these men seeming unwashed, or as if they had slept in their clothes. But they had kind voices, and their eyes were very friendly. So she shook hands with them all with heartiness, and asked them to drive out and bring their womenkind.

“I am going to make up my mind not to be lonesome,” she declared; “but, all the same, I shall want to see some women.”

Annie had got safe on the high seat of the wagon, and was balancing her little feet on the inclined foot-rest, when a woman came running across the street, calling aloud,–

“Mr. Lancy! Mr. Lancy! You’re not going to drive away without introducing me to your wife!”

She was a thin little woman, with movements as nervous and as graceless as those of a grasshopper. Her dun-colored garments seemed to have all the hue bleached out of them with wind and weather. Her face was brown and wrinkled, and her bright eyes flashed restlessly, deep in their sockets. Two front teeth were conspicuously missing; and her faded hair was blown in wisps about her face. Jim performed the introduction, and Annie held out her hand. It was a pretty hand, delicately gloved in dove color. The woman took it in her own, and after she had shaken it, held it for a silent moment, looking at it. Then she almost threw it from her. The eyes which she lifted to scan the bright young face above her had something like agony in them. Annie blushed under this fierce scrutiny, and the woman, suddenly conscious of her demeanor, forced a smile to her lips.

“I’ll come out an’ see yeh,” she said, in cordial tones. “May be, as a new house-keeper, you’ll like a little advice. You’ve a nice place, an’ I wish yeh luck.”