They had never met any of their former friends since coming to the northwest, but had learned that the Gowells and Moodys had settled somewhere in Montana, and word had been received from the Lane boys, who had taken up a homestead in Washington, but the address given was a remote point from the Gullys. The letters stated that those mentioned were all doing well and were satisfied with the change. Not a word of complaint had ever been written by Travis Gully or the members of his family. They had failed the first year, but it was probably due to unusual conditions, they thought, so they made no mention of the fact.
They had written home at regular intervals, stating that all were well, the happy, healthy growth of the children was noted, and an amusing description of their home, and experience in building the cistern and hauling water with which to fill it, was faithfully chronicled. An account of the trip to the harvest field was written, telling of the enormous yield and the methods used in saving the grain, also of how a sufficient amount was earned to meet the winter's requirements, but never a word of the heart breaking failure of their first planting nor of the tortures endured in the grain fields, feeling that the possibilities of a reoccurrence of these unfortunate conditions was remote. They looked only to a more successful future.
The little district school house, the erection of which had been started early in the fall, was now complete, but no teacher could be found who was willing to come into the wilderness to teach the few children of which the district boasted. The neighborhood finally by common consent organized what they called a "Literary Society," and a Sunday School. The society met twice a month, and these meetings were looked forward to as events of great importance, the program usually consisting of debates by the older members and recitations, dialogues and songs by the children of the community. The Sunday School met weekly, and the homesteaders came with their families for distances of from ten to fifteen miles to be in attendance.
As the holiday season approached; arrangements were made for a neighborhood Christmas tree, contributions were taken up at a meeting of the society, and a committee of arrangements appointed to take charge of the affair. Someone being the fortunate possessor of a catalogue from an eastern mail order house, it was brought into requisition and a selection of decorations and trinkets for the tree was made and the order for their shipment forwarded. A census of the community was taken and no one forgotten.
At dusk faint lights twinkled from the scattered homes in this sea of eternal gray sage.
For days before that memorable Christmas Eve an air of mystery surrounded the actions of everyone concerned. Packages that came through the regular mails from the home folks in the east were carefully hidden away, not to be opened until Christmas. The age worn spirit of the season's cheer had invaded the desert, bringing with it a feeling of comradeship not possible to engender in a community without the desert environments, the vastness and the solitude impressed upon the homesteader a sense of his individual smallness and the necessity of association with one another. They were there for a common purpose, the conquest of the desert and the building of a home.