A little farther on, the sprightly eyes of the girl lighted upon a large, speckled bird, standing still, almost in their road.
“What a beautiful bird! What is it?” inquired Rosalie.
“It’s a prairie chicken. Now, I want you just to take notice o’ that creetur; it won’t take the trouble to move—you’ll see,” said the man, driving slowly past, and leaving the bird behind them, standing still.
“They must be very tame,” said Rosalie.
“No, they ain’t nyther, but they’ve got a heap o’ sense. We are driving. Now, if I had o’ been afoot with a gun, or anything that looks like a gun to it—say a stick—why, it would a-taken wing in a minute. I’ve took notice of it often and often. Same case with a deer—it’ll stand right still and look at you going past with your team; but only just let it catch its eyes on you when you’re walking ’long o’ your gun, and it’s off in an instant. Well knowing of that, you see, I often just quietly lays my gun down in the bottom of the wagon, to be ready for the creeturs.”
In desultory talk like this, which nevertheless gave our young immigrants some little insight into the manners of the country, they passed over the three miles of intervening prairie land, and entered Wolf’s Grove.
Wolf’s Grove was not what its name indicated—an isolated piece of wood, similar to those that at wide intervals dotted the prairie; it was rather a portion of that vast, unbroken, interminable forest, projecting here into the open prairie like a point of land into the sea, but stretching back and back hundreds of miles, and even to the banks of Lake Superior. Here the old primeval forest trees were of gigantic, almost fabulous size, but thinly scattered, and standing singly apart, like the outposts of a vast army.
Half a mile within the Grove, where the trees were thicker, stood the cabin originally built for a school and meeting-house, by the first settlers. There was not a wood-shed, a fence, a fruit tree, nor a foot of cultivated ground, around it; nor a house, nor a field, within three miles of it.
Mark Sutherland and Rosalie alighted, and entered the house, while the driver secured his horses and gave them water. The cabin was unusually large and well built, being nearly thirty feet square, and constructed of huge logs, well hewn, and well cemented. The cabin fronted south, where one door admitted into the only room; opposite this door, in the north wall, stood the large, open fire-place. The room was lighted by two windows, fronting each other, east and west. The floor was well laid, and a step-ladder in the corner, between the fire-place and the east window, led up to a loft. The house was in good repair, with the single exception of the broken windows.
“A very different abode from that you have left, for my sake, dear Rosalie; and yet, if you only knew, as I do, how much better this is than any other log cabin to be found anywhere! Why, Rose, it is a palace, compared to some.”