“It’s nothing new for men or boys to take the credit for what their sisters do,” said Jean, as Hal strode away, satisfied that in protecting his sisters from a piece of folly, by accepting it as his own, he was acting the part of a man. “Adam set the example; and where would Herschel have been if he hadn’t had a sister?”
“Adam might have been in a box if he couldn’t have had Eve,” laughed Marjorie; “for there would then have been nobody to raise Cain.”
“Or the Ranger family,” added Jean.
Several days of tedious, laborious travel brought the wanderers into an open, sparsely timbered, almost unsettled part of the State of Missouri. The snow and sleet gave way to brighter skies, the roads and sloughs were drying up, and the higher grounds were gradually arraying themselves in robes of green and gold.
“Here is vacant land, and lots of it,” said Mary, as she viewed the virgin prospect of a mighty settlement in undisguised admiration. “This is a beautiful world!” and she sighed deeply, her face toward the rising sun.
“Don’t look backward,” cried Jean. “Remember Lot’s wife.”
“There’s no use in trying to look backward,” urged Hal. “Dad will never halt till he lands us on the western shore of the continent, on the eastern hem of the Pacific Ocean. He says this country’s too old for him. The wild turkeys are all killed off, or scared out o’ sight; the deer and elk are gone for good; and the country’s played out.”
“Wait a few years, and there’ll be railroads gridironing this whole great valley of the Mississippi,” said Jean. “There’ll be towns and cities springing up in a hundred places. Farms and orchards and handsome country homes will cover these rolling prairies. The native groves will be more than quadrupled by cultivation, and schoolhouses and churches will spring into existence everywhere.”
“I wish you’d talk like this to your father! Won’t you, Jean?” asked Mrs. Ranger.
“You couldn’t hire him to live in a slave State!” cried Jean.