Such, in brief, were the daily customs of the early settlers of the middle West, whose children wandered still farther westward in the forties and fifties, carrying with them the habits in which they had been reared to the distant Territory afterwards known as the “Whole of Oregon,” which originally comprised the great Northwest Territory, where now flourish massive blocks of mighty States.
Prior to the time of the departure of the subjects of these chronicles for the goal of John Ranger’s ambition, but one unusual occurrence had marred the lives and prosperity of the rising generation of Rangers and Robinsons. To the progenitors of the two families the mutations of time had brought problems serious and difficult, not the least of which was the infirmity of advancing years. This they had made doubly annoying through having assigned to their children, when they themselves needed it most, everything of value which they had struggled to accumulate during their years of vigorous effort to raise and educate their families.
In the two households under review, all dependent upon the energies and bounty of the second generation of Rangers and Robinsons, there were besides the great-grandmother (a universal favorite) two sexagenarian bachelor uncles and two elderly spinsters, the latter remote cousins of uncertain age, uncertain health, and still more uncertain temper, who had long outlived their usefulness, after having missed, in their young and vigorous years, the duties and responsibilities that accompany the founding of families and homes of their own. It was little wonder that drones like these were out of place in the overcrowded households of their more provident kinspeople, to whom the modern “Home of the Friendless” was unknown. What plan to pursue in making necessary provision for these outside incumbents, even John Ranger, the optimistic leader of the related hosts, could not conjecture.
“We’ve fixed it,—Mame and I,” said Jean, one evening, after an anxious discussion of the question had been carried on with some warmth between the two family heads, in which no conclusion had been reached except a flat refusal on the part of Elijah Robinson to quadruple the quota of dependants in his own household.
“And how have you fixed it?” asked her father, who often called Jean his “Heart’s Delight.”
“Our bachelor uncles and cousins are just rusting out with irresponsibility!” she cried with characteristic Ranger vehemence. “They ought to have a home of their own and be compelled to take care of it. There’s that house and garden where you board and lodge the mill-hands. Why not give ’em that and let ’em keep boarders? The boarders, the four acres of ground, and the cow and garden ought to keep them in modest comfort. This would make them free and independent, as everybody ought to be.”
“But the boarding-house belongs with the farm. I’ve sold it to your uncle.”
“Then let Uncle Lije lease or sell it to them, share and share alike.”
“What is it worth?” asked Mary.
“Only about three hundred dollars, the way property sells now,” said her uncle.