1!H4. 
T 1-4 E RURAL NEW-YORKER 
• iOI 
THE LAND OF FULFILLMENT 
A STORY OF HOMESTEADING 
By ROSE SEELYE-MILLER 
CHAPTER III. 
The Lure of the Land. 
Still coughing harshly, Nate bent over 
his prostrate friend, striving to find his 
heart, his breath, and to roll that great 
recumbent body over to an easier posi¬ 
tion. 
“Stop that coughing! Haven’t I told 
you a thousand times you’d better give 
it away?” Norm’s voice was fretful, 
irritable, but the voice of an angel could 
not have sounded more satisfactory to 
Nate. 
“Glory!” cried Nate, “Glory, I’ll do 
anything on earth to please you—but 
that. I can’t quite-quit this habit yet— 
to please even you.” Nate managed to 
gasp out. “Are you sure you’re alive?” 
“I guess so. Where are we anyway— 
I can't seem to quite remember,” and 
Norm raised himself on his elbow, and 
looked down on his long length of limb 
lying by the splintered tree. “Oh, I know 
—the lightning struck the tree- I guess 
I couldn’t have been struck much, just 
knocked silly for a few minutes. Where’s 
the gun? Is it all blown to flinders?” 
“I hope so!” Nate declared emphati¬ 
cally, if you haven’t any more sense than 
to hunt in a storm like the one just 
passed over. Can you move?” Nate was 
prying at Norm’s impassive form, for he 
had not yet tried to get up. “If you have 
any idea where we are and can get back 
to camp, we’d better do it. Tne oxen 
pulled up stakes and went away, and the 
grub came mighty near getting a wash¬ 
out. I’m no woodsman, and no good at 
anything.” Nate’s voice trailed away 
into tremulousness. Some way the 
shock of his fall, the wound on his head, 
and more than all, his terror for Norm, 
had about unnerved him. 
“Whew!” said Norm. “We do seem 
to be up against it, I haven’t any sense 
of direction left, if we find the camp it 
will be an accident, but we may as well 
sally forth and mosey on,” Norm finished 
whimsically, for the tenseness of the sit¬ 
uation needed relaxing. 
“How did it happen?” Nate asked, fol¬ 
lowing close on Norm’s heels. 
“I don’t know. I had been walking 
along hunting for squirrels, and I had 
just aimed at my last one, when there 
came a terrific shock, that tree went 
crashing down, my gun flew into space, 
and I just toppled over too, I spose. I 
hadn’t noticed that it had been clouding, 
I thought it was getting dark, and I was 
just about ready to start for camp.” 
“I wish you had started, and got 
there,” Nate said warmly. “If we can’t 
have better luck than this we’d better 
wait till the clouds roll by.” 
“If we can’t find the camp, we’ll have 
to find a sheltered place and make a 
fire; I guess I’ve got some matches.” 
“I don’t know where you’ll find a dry 
place,” Nate replied, pessimistically, and 
even as he spoke, he lost his footing and 
sank down, down, down. 
Norm, who was a little ahead and to 
the right of Nate, failed to hear the 
crackling of Nate’s footsteps behind him 
and turned to see what the matter could 
be. “Nate, Nate, Where are you?” he 
called, “NATE!” 
“I’m here,” came a muffled voice, that 
sounded faint and far off. 
“Where?” Norm’s voice was incisive. 
“Here, here, here!” Nate kept calling.” 
“I’ve fallen through into some kind of 
a hole. Watch out that you don’t fall 
too.” 
“Hurt any?” Norm asked, cautiously 
approaching the place from whence issued 
Nate’s guiding voice. 
“No, not hurt. Here, I’ll strike a 
match, so you can see where you are.” 
The match flared up feebly, but the little 
spot of light showed Norm the opening 
through which Nate had fallen. He 
stretched himself carefully on the ground 
and crept to the brink of the hole. Nate 
struck another match, which revealed to 
Norm’s woodsman’s eye a small cave, and 
apparently not inhabited by wild animals- 
He let himself down into it. 
“Talk about luck. If th'S isn’t the 
best piece of luck that could have hap¬ 
pened to us. All we have to do is-to ex¬ 
press a wish, and lo, the thing is done !” 
Norm spoke gaily, and he lit another 
match, caught up a piece of light wood, 
and finding it resinous, he touched the 
match flame to it. “A torch, of the most 
approved style!” he cried. “Now we’ll 
see what’s come to us!” 
“Solid rock below,” Nate approved. 
“And a lot of dry leaves and litter for 
a fire.” added Norm. “It’s a good while 
since anything has been in here, for the 
leaves and litter had entirely covered the 
open space.” 
“Let’s explore a little further,” and 
Norm’s torch flickered along the passage, 
showing an opening at one end, through 
which they passed ; this revealed a larger 
space. The torchlight drew back toward 
the opening through which they had come, 
proving there was a draught, which would 
carry the smoke of their fire upward and 
out of the orifice. 
Going back satisfied, Norm gathered 
leaves and litter into the middle com¬ 
partment. “We can make a fire here, and 
have our whole bed warm, for the stones 
will heat up and keep us as warm and 
dry as can be.” 
“That’ll be a comfort, for we’re both 
pretty damp,” Nate assented. 
Norm touched a match to the dry stuff, 
and in a few minutes a grateful warmth 
stole over the cave- Norm threw off his 
game bag. “We may as well eat a little 
to pass the time away,” he said cheer¬ 
fully, and he drew out two squirrels and 
a grouse. “Which shall it be, quail on 
toast or squirrel on stick?” 
“That which will cook quicker,” Nate 
cried, catching up one of the squirrels 
and stripping off the skin, for he had 
learned to do that deftly. Both boys 
were feeling peculiarly gay, for the re¬ 
lief from tension and the sense of escape 
from death and separation made them by 
turns both gay and grave. 
“If we miss your heart’s desire in the 
West, we can come back here and start 
a stone quarry,” Norm said looking 
around at the granite walls. 
“Sure,” Nate agreed. “All we have 
to do is to lift our hands or stamp our 
feet and the earth yawns beneath us, and 
spreads her bounty for the taKing.” 
After the joyous feast was over, the 
boys lying near the genial warmth of the 
fire, talked long and gravely. 
“Do you know,” Norm said, “I believe 
if a fellow wants a thing long enough, 
and works hard enough for it, that it 
eventually comes to him?” 
“If that’s the case. I’m going to begin 
to want things hard.” 
“Oh, but you’ve not only got to want 
them, but work for them. You’ve got to 
keep yourself dry, and breathe deep, if 
you expect to get—what you want—and 
you’ve got to breathe deep, and eat 
decent, if you want to get to be the 
Strong Man,” Norm counseled. 
“I hate to be a ‘sissy,’ ” stormed Nate, 
“always looking out for myself. I’d 
rather have a hand like a ham, and a 
skin like leather, than to be the finest 
pink dude in New York,” he declared 
vehemently. 
“Want it hard enough then,” Norm ad¬ 
vised. “Folks mostly always think their 
own troubles are the worst in the world. 
Before you came, • I used sometimes to 
think life hard and bitter and lonesome. 
I had never really asked for a pal, or 
hoped for one, but I had wanted one, 
and wanted him .fierce, and then—you 
came-” Norm paused. 
“Do—do you think that—God had any¬ 
thing to do with it?” 
“I hadn’t thought—but if He’s good 
—why not?” 
“Maybe good things will keep right on 
happening,” Nate said tentatively. 
“If you get into the sunshine, you’re 
bound to feel it—and if you get out of 
it, why that’s one’s own lookout,” Norm 
was voicing his most -acred belief. “If 
we get into the mud—we’re bound to be 
dirty—but if we keep out of the dirty 
things—of life—we’re bound to get into 
clean ones.” 
“Well,” Nate ejaculated slowly, “Well, 
then it’s surely up to us—I wonder if 
I can hop to it.” 
If anything could have knit closer to 
the hearts of these two comrades, that 
night in the heart of the earth would 
have done it. Boys seldom speak of tho 
deep things of life, but both Nate and 
Norm had been brought face to face with 
some of them, and the simple confession 
of Norm’s faith, impressed Nate strongly, 
and Nate, quite uneonscionsly caught hold 
of it, and was lifted up and helped by it. 
They woke to a dismal morning of gray 
clouds and a raw wind, gave promise of 
a steady rain. The ashen sun showing 
feebly through the sodden sky, gave them 
a hint of direction, and it was not more 
than half an hour after leaving the cave, 
before the camp was sighted, and at a 
little distance the oxen were grazing, 
dragging their picket ropes as they moved 
from one succulent bunch of grass to 
another. Norm tethered the oxen, and 
then they had coffee which Nate had 
made, partaking hurriedly of their break¬ 
fast. 
“We’re in for a rainy spell, and if we 
are to make any progress at all we’ll 
have to fix some sort of shelter on the 
wagon. We’ll take the lumber and build 
a little shanty, and nail it to the wagon, 
then we can eat or sleep, or live right on 
the wagon if necessary, and it will keep 
our provisions and supplies dry.” 
“I wouldn’t wonder if I could hit a 
nail,” volunteered Nate. “But I couldn’t 
construct a pig pen to save my life.” 
Norm went about unloading the lumber 
and cutting it into suitable lengths. 
It was not long before a very creditable, 
ark-like little structure loomed over the 
wagon, and the supplies were placed safe¬ 
ly beneath its shelter. The oxen, fresh 
from their long rest, and rich feeding, 
and refreshed by the rain and the cool 
“DEATH, TAXES 
AND 
Manure 
Are the Only Three Things in This World I Am Sure of 
WROTE AN OLD CUSTOMER OF OURS 
99 
Passing by the first two, he and every other farmer cer¬ 
tainly has every right to be sure of THE MAPES MANURES. 
They have been used for fifty years by the most intelligent, 
the solidest and most successful farmers, who have banked 
absolutely on 
I. THE RECORD OF MAPES IN THE FIELD. 
Our record in the field for the past fifty years is too well- 
known to require more than a mere reference. In this connec¬ 
tion, “lest we forget,” in the American Agriculturist’s Prize 
Contest, open to the entire United States, the largest crops 
of Potatoes and Corn grown on commercial fertilizer alone 
were grown with Mapes; 669 bushels of Potatoes on one 
measured acre with the Mapes Potato Manure, and 213 bush¬ 
els Shelled Corn on one measured acre with the Mapes Corn 
Manure. 
II. THE MAPES RECORD WITH THE EXPERIMENT 
STATIONS. 
We are equally proud of our record with the Stations. 
There may at times have been an occasional chance analysis 
which was not quite what we would have liked, and not fairly 
representative of our goods, but on the grand average, year 
in and year out, our record has been something to be justly 
proud of. 
III. SAME FAMILY MANAGEMENT FOR THREE 
GENERATIONS. 
Not only have the Mapeses continued successively in the 
business for three generations—grandfather, father and son— 
but the Lanes, who have been associated with the Mapeses 
from the start, follow the same identical record in the business, 
grandfather, father and son, successively. Could there be a 
better guarantee than this family management, with the ele¬ 
ment of family pride deeply involved, that everything has 
been done and will continue to be done to make the Mapes 
Manures as good as the knowledge of fertilizer science per¬ 
mits for the crops for which they are intended. 
The Mapes Manures have never stood still but have been 
constantly improving as the knowledge of scientific plant 
feeding broadened and progressed. 
“The Mapes business had its inception in the scientific 
research and experiments of Professor James Jay Mapes, and 
scientific research and experiment, coupled with the most 
exact practical experience, have been the dominating factors 
in the Mapes business to the present day.”—The Florida 
Grower. 
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