NOTES FROM THE PKAIRIE 105 



think. I shall never forget the first one I found in 

 the West; it was like meeting an old friend. It 

 grew alongside of an emigrant road, about five miles 

 from my home; here I spied the golden treasure in 

 the grass. Some of the many ' prairie schooners ' 

 that had passed that way had probably dropped the 

 one seed. Mother dug it up and planted it in our 

 flower-bed, and in two years the neighborhood was 

 yellow with them, — all from that one root. The 

 prairies are gone now, and the wild flowers, those 

 that have not been civilized to death like the Indians, 

 have taken refuge in the fence-corners." 



I had asked her what she knew about cranes, and 

 she replied as follows : — 



" During the first few years after we came West, 

 cranes, especially the sand-hill variety, were very 

 plentiful. Any day in the summer you might see 

 a triangle of them flying over, with their long legs 

 dragging behind them; or, if you had sharp eyes, 

 could see them stalking along the sloughs sometimes 

 found on the prairie. In the books I see them de- 

 scribed as being brown in color. Now I should not 

 call them brown, for they are more of a yellow. 

 They are just the color of a gosling, should it get its 

 down somewhat soiled, and they look much like 

 overgrown goslings set up on stilts. I have often 

 found their nests, and always in the shallow water 

 in the slough, built out of sticks, — much as the 

 children build cob-houses, — about a foot high, with 

 two large flat eggs in them. I have often tried to 

 catch them on their nests, so as to see how they 



