1014. 
TlrltC KUKAL NKW-YOKKEK 
1066 
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The Land of Fulfillment 
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A Story of Homesteading 
\ rmmmmnBy Rose Seelye-Millefiimnmmi 
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thing. I‘m going to get a Biblo to lay on 
the shi'lf." Nate said reverently. 
“It would seem as homelike 
gingham aprons, and who knows, 
our lives are being wrought upon 
tier fully as that field of flux?” 
“It is eurious how we were wrenched 
away from the obi things and brought to 
this.” 
“It is strange and mysterious; but we, 
who were content with our weekly or 
monthly wages, are now looking forward 
to help feed the world. It’s a great work, 
a glorious and honorable work to plow, 
and sow. and reap.” 
The days swung by and the first of Au¬ 
gust burned upon the land. The grain 
that had been erect so long 
with heavy heads hung down, 
the richness of the Summer. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
The Chop op a Night. 
“If we had room in the surrey. I’d take 
as many crates as you could make up," 
said Mr. Ilomer, one of their guests after 
a meal, in which mushrooms took a lead¬ 
ing part, 
“I’m going to Wetasket this after¬ 
noon,” Nate put in eagerly. “We’ll fix 
up as many crates as you think you’ll 
want, and I’ll take them in, and leave 
them wherever you say.” 
“Take them to the express office and 
address them to me, in St. Paul,” and lie 
handed Nate a card. “I like to see you 
young fellows out. here roughing it. and 
making the best of things." for some way 
the whole of the boys’ story had leaked 
out to these kindly strangers. Maybe they 
were hard business men in the city, but 
on the plains they had dropped their self- 
centrement, and had opened their hearts 
to the new country, the New West:. 
“I’ll dispose of these mushrooms, and if 
you have further to sell, ship them and 
I’ll see to the sale. If they'd rather have 
them in baskets or any special way I’ll 
let you know.” 
“I wish you’d just take the mushrooms 
and use them; they haven’t cost us a 
cent, and we’ve had just wonderful luck 
- ver since we came, turning oil' the most, 
unexpected things, buffalo bones, and 
horns, and-" 
“The rest of the settlers haven’t had 
any such ‘luck,’ ” put in Mr. Mansfield. 
“It isn’t luck; it’s just, the spirit to see 
a chance and grasp it and cling to it, and 
wrench every ounce of help out <d_ it. I 
see a future for you fellows. ^ ou let 
Homer sell your mushrooms. lie’s no 
philanthropist.” 
A general laugh followed, and with a 
general handshaking the men drove away. 
“This is the queerest country." Nate 
remarked for the ’steenth time, since he 
had first set foot on it. "II our expected 
crops turn as well proportionally as our 
unexpected ones—” Nate paused and 
helped Norm to collect baskets, and pails 
in which to gather the mushroom product. 
“I knew mushrooms were profitable, 
but I never dreamed of a market. It only 
takes 1- hours for them to reach St. Paul, 
and the dew will hardly be off them.” 
“Was the mushroom seed in that wheat 
we sowedV” Nate inquired innocently. 
Norm laughed immoderately. 
“Nate, you are tin gumpiest gump. 
when you sot out to be. 1 suppose the 
spawn of these mushrooms has been lying 
here years—ten, maybe a hundred or a 
thousand—waiting for the upturning of 
he sod, and the rain, and the heat." The 
boys bent to the work gaily, but no day 
in the field had ever left them readier to 
stop than this one did. They made ten 
light boxes and packed about ten pounds 
uf mushrooms in each box, and Nate 
drove off gaily for the 120-mile distant city. 
He had borrowed Hank Jones’ light, mar¬ 
ket wagon, and the horses covered the dis¬ 
tance in less than three hours, reaching 
the express office only in time to turn his 
crates over and send them on their jour¬ 
ney. He caught sight of Mr. Homer as 
he boarded the train, but there was no 
time for more than a wave of the hand. 
The seeding went steadily forward, and 
by tin* middle of May the crop was all in. 
• ven to the soil corn. The land was yet 
ro be broken for llnx. but with the ox 
ream and the horse team that did not 
seem a very strenuous operation. Arrow 
heads of flint and steel, stone hammers 
and bits of pipe were picked op. and went 
ro adorn the shanties on the plains. The 
rinding of each one seemed a romance and 
i revelation, for the Indians, like the buf¬ 
falo, were driven from their hunting 
grounds, and either extinguished or shut 
up in government stations. The rains 
came as needed to force the crop, and the 
sun shone gloriously between whiles. The 
immense fields of ■■ain all around and 
iboiit upon the face of the plains lifted 
high heads to the blue, and made the 
prairie a billow of beauty. To Nate, who 
had hardly seen the country in his life, 
very rippling change was f light with 
enchantment. He worked and tidied at 
whatever he found to do, and yet he had 
eyes tor every beauteous change of the 
wind-swept grain. 
“Heaven has come down to ear , ‘' 
Nate said solemnly one morning as jo 
looked out across the field of blooming 
flax. 
“It's there in all its color." replied 
Norm, standing reverently by Nate’s side. 
“Ilow could I ever have preferred to 
work in the dingy city?” Nate sighed. 
“And yet it nearly broke my heart to 
leave that acid-fumed work-place.” 
“And I hated to leave my little garden 
patch in the woods,” Norm mused dream¬ 
ily. 
“I s’pose it. was because we never had 
known anything larger.” 
“It is bit7 here,” Norm agreed. 
“It seems to me," said Nate, “as though 
one could almost see God’s hand at work 
out here. Yesterday that flax was noth¬ 
ing hut a mass of green, but with the 
touch of the morning—God’s morning— 
upon it, it is transformed into u fruitful 
as the 
perhaps 
as won- 
The 
now stood 
laden with 
The lower 
leaves had long since yellowed, and the 
stalks were being burnished like gold. 
Nate, Norm, .Tim Maynard, Hank Jones 
and some others had bought., on time, a 
wonderful new machine called a header, 
and they were going to harvest their 
crops together. The oats, the barley, had 
been cut with a binder, and were standing 
in rich shocks over the fields. The time 
for the wheat harvest had come, and this 
harvest, was to be begun on the field first 
sown by Nate and Norm, as that field, 
while not quite as heavy as Jim May¬ 
nard’s, had seemed to ripen a little earlier. 
“It will be our wheat to-morrow,” ex¬ 
ulted Nate as the two hoys hurried 
through till' evening chores, after a hard 
day's work in the barley field. 
“I’m afraid it has shelled some al¬ 
ready.” Norm said, anxiously. “I hope 
it is still, for a ,/ind now would thrash 
it out considerably.’’ 
“This is the dry season,” said Nate 
easily. "It’s been as hot. as an oven to¬ 
day. and it's breathless to-night. There's 
wind. 
' Norm replied, vaguely 
often as still as death 
But we’ll hope. Eel’s 
you’ll rub the hide 
you curry them so 
, white-lipped 
the One who 
them a 
no likelihood of a 
“We can’t tell, 
prophetic. “It’s 
before a storm, 
turn in now; come, 
all off those horses, 
much.” 
Nate gave a look of pride at his team, 
gave one more stroke of the brush, and 
turned away with Norm. A cool plunge 
in the creek refreshed them unspeakably, 
and they lay down on their blankets out¬ 
side the shanty and fell asleep. Roth 
were awakened about three o’clock by a 
dash of rain in their upturned faces. 
They gathered up their blankets and made 
a dive for the house, which seemed lmt 
and breathless after the clear elixir out¬ 
side. There came a roar of thunder and 
a flash of lightning, and then as the two 
hoys stood, dazed, almost paralyzed with 
fear for their precious crop, there came a 
thump-thump-thump upon the roof of tin* 
low shanty. 
“Hail!" gasped Norm. 
“Hail!” re-echoed Nati 
and wide-eyed. “I wish 
made the plains would p 
little longer. Oh. Lord !” cried Nate. 
There was no irreverence in the hoy’s 
heart or on his lips, and if the desire of 
the heart is prayer, then Nate prayed 
truly in that moment; and whatever tin* 
cause, tin* storm cloud drifted over with 
only a little rain to freshen up the burnt- 
out atmosphere. Tin* grain waved its 
golden beauty in the morning, and the 
harvest went merrily forward to its com¬ 
plete end. 
The glory and the gladness of those 
days to tin* settlers on the pinins! They 
saw the fruition of their hopes and plans, 
and reaped some thirty, some sixty, and 
some an hundred fold for their sowing. 
Many a liorny-hnnded young settler drove 
twenty miles to Wetasket. and went sol¬ 
emnly into tin* church there, to listen to 
tin* Harvest Home service, and dimly, un¬ 
knowingly. perhaps, to render thanks for 
the splendor of the year. 
After the steam thrasher had poured 
out its largess o, bitsbeled grain, the boys 
found that, although tin* wheat price was 
low. it still netted them enough to pay all 
incurred expenses, and leave a goodly sur¬ 
plus for added machinery and other things 
for the coming year. The plows used for 
breaking would not answer for backset¬ 
ting or real plowing, so a gir x plow 
seemed esential. and with the coming of 
the gang plow more horses must be had. 
for little of the farm machinery is run 
with fewer than from four to six horses. 
"I used to think that any fool could 
run a farm, and that it: didn’t cost any¬ 
thing. either,” said Nate reflectively. "Rut 
it takes both mind and money.” 
All the Fall the boys worked steadily, 
plowing for early Spring seeding, enlarg¬ 
ing their stable, and eveu fixed up the 
shanties, hanking lip around them and 
adding siding and real shingles over the 
tar paper, which had done good service 
the previous year. The straw stacks 
were burned in tin 
clean for the plow, 
of hay which had been 
most a foolish waste of 
(lout 
Tin 
fields to leave them 
and tin* small stacks 
made 
time. 
seemed al¬ 
as the pre¬ 
vious Winter the stock had hardly touched 
hay, preferring the crisp buffalo grass on 
the open plains. 
{Continued Xc.rt Month.) 
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