A Long Ago Kansas Christmas. 



and we were hardly ever out of sight of timber, but gradually 

 the patches of timber and farms grew scarcer and scarcer, until 

 at last we were out on the broad Kansas prairie. Farm houses 

 and fences had disappeared from the landscape, excepting now 

 and then a sod house or dug-out with its inhospitable-looking 

 barbed wire corral. All signs of winter had disappeared and 

 the sun shone brightly. Great herds of long-horned cattle were 

 grazing on the brown buffalo grass as contentedly as though 

 it were mid-summer instead of mid-winter. 



"This is winter, but milder 

 Winter than I ever knew." 



As the last faint reflection of a rarely beautiful sunset faded 

 from the sky "fair Luna sailed the heavenly sea," shining with 

 a soft brilliancy unknown to latitudes east of the Missouri. 

 Finally a series of shrill shrieks from our little engine an- 

 nounced the end of my journey, and I alighted beside a con- 

 verted box car, wfiich may have seen better days, but now mas- 

 queraded as the passenger station of G . 



Handing my baggage to the station agent, I crossed the 

 street and "pounded up" the proprietor of the hotel, restaurant 

 and postoffice, and was soon comfortably fixed in a bed that 

 was a pleasant surprise to me. After an early breakfast we 

 went over to the store, and while making a few purchases, my 

 friend drove up with a wagon. With a hearty hand-shake and 

 a genuine western greeting from my old friend Dave H , 

 we loaded in the baggage and were off for a fifteen-mile drive. 

 There was no indication of Christmas week in the air or sur- 

 roundings. It was a gloriously bright Indian summer morn- 

 ing, and as the horses trotted along the trail we talked of some 

 of the old "white Christmas days" back in Iowa. At long 

 intervals we passed the sod house of some homesteader with 

 its little patch of stubble field and corn. Without any indica- 

 tion of the line, the horses left the trail and followed a draw 

 which led off to the 'westward. At the end of this draw, near 

 the bank of the creek, stood the dug-out home of my old friend. 



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