Then you rise some soft morning, and the air is vocal with the cooing of myriad birds. If you are just from the east, you will think that thousands of turtle doves are announcing that spring has come. They seem close about you; but you cannot see them. They are not in the groves near by; you follow the sounds through the waving prairie grass for a long distance, and you find them not, and will be surprised when your western friend tells you that these are the voices of the prairie hens, miles away, holding their annual convention, the queer cuckooing not being loving sounds, but notes of war–abortive attempts at crowing, which the rival males set up as they prepare to do battle with each other.
And now from the blue expanse overhead come down the varied cries of the migratory birds returning from the south. Line upon line of wild geese, in military order, follow their leader, while the trumpet blasts of the sand-hill cranes–the ostrich of the American prairie–ring out clear and shrill, and their long white bills glisten in the sunlight from afar, like bristling bayonets of ivory.
Tom stood in front of the hotel, enjoying the spring sights and sounds with unusual zest. The two winters now past had been eventful to him. Mr. Payson, the missionary, who had taken a great interest in Tom, had, the winter before, 172 kept school in his own cabin; and Tom and his sister Eliza had attended much of the time, their tuition being paid by such assistance as Tom might be able to render Mr. Payson in his outdoor work.
Eliza had grown to be a sedate and interesting young woman, and was making good headway with her studies, when one day she gave notice that she should not be able to attend school any longer; and to her teacher’s inquiries she returned only blushes in reply, and he could get no further light until the next day, when an enterprising young man from a “neighboring village,” twenty miles distant, called to invite Mr. Payson to join himself and “Miss Eliza” in marriage.
The last winter the missionary’s family had occupied rooms at the hotel. Mrs. Payson had been growingly unhappy from dread of the Indians, and often said to her husband,–
“Our lot is just such a place as they would be likely to come to first.”
Mr. Payson did not share this fear; but, on account of her feelings, the generous-hearted landlord offered them rooms for the winter rent free.
The winter had gone by without any adverse occurrence. Tom had been prospering in his studies under the missionary’s direction, working for his board in the family of one of the town 173 owners, just opposite the hotel; so it was but a step for him to the missionary’s when he wished to recite.
“Will you be able to hear my recitation this afternoon?” asked Tom, as Mr. Payson came down the hotel steps.