“How did you like it?” was the evasive reply, as the twain withdrew to a distant corner, where they could exchange confidences undisturbed.
“I haven’t had time to think it over yet,” said Mrs. Ranger. “My greatest trouble is about leaving our parents. It seems as if I could not bear to break the news to them.”
“Don’t worry, Annie; they know already. When Lije told his mother that John was going to Oregon, she fainted dead away. When she revived and sat up, she wanted to come right over to see you, in spite of the storm.”
“Just listen! How the wind does roar!”
“I don’t see how your mother can live without you, Annie. I tried very hard to persuade Lije to refuse to buy John’s farm; but he would have his way, as he always does. Of course, we’ll do all we can for the old folks, but Lije is heavily in debt again, with the ever-recurring interest staring us all in the face. John will want his money, with interest,—they all do,—and we know how rapidly it accumulates, from our own dearly bought experience, the result of poor Joe’s troubles!”
“I hope my dear father and mother won’t live very long,” sighed Mrs. Ranger. “If John would only let me make them a deed to my little ten-acre farm! But I can’t get him to talk about it.”
II
EARLY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE WEST
The surroundings of the budding daughters of the Ranger and Robinson families had thus far been limited, outside of their respective homes, to attendance at the district school on winter week-days when weather permitted, and on Sundays at the primitive church services held by itinerant clergymen in the same rude edifice.
Oh, that never-to-be-forgotten schoolhouse of the borderland and the olden time! Modelled everywhere after the same one-roomed, quadrangular pattern,—and often the only seat of learning yet to be seen in school districts of the far frontier,—the building in which the children of these chronicles received the rudimentary education which led to the future weal of most of them was built of logs unhewn, and roofed with “shakes” unshaven. One rough horizontal log was omitted from the western wall when the structure was raised by the men of the district, who purposely left the space for the admission of a long line of little window-panes above the rows of desks. A huge open fireplace occupied the whole northern end of the room; rude benches rocked on the uneven puncheon floor and creaked as the students turned upon them to face the long desks beneath the little window-panes, or to confront the centre of the room. The children’s feet generally swung to and fro in a sort of rhythmic consonance with the audible whispers in which they studied their lessons,—when not holding sly conversation, amid much suppressed giggling, with their neighbors at elbow, if the teacher’s back was turned.
The busy agricultural seasons of springtime and summer, and often extending far into the autumn, prevented the regular attendance at school of the older children of the district, who were usually employed early and late, indoors and out, with the ever-exacting labors of the farm.