It was not supposed as night after night the hall was crowded with eager anxious ones, that all would reach the land of promise. But even had those who come been settled together there would have been quite a nice settlement of people.
The territory being so spotted with sand hills was the great hindrance to a body of people settling down as the colony had expected to, all together as one settlement. One cannot tell, to look over it, just where the sandy spots are, as it is all covered with grass. They are only a slight raise in the ground and are all sizes, from one to many acres.
One-half section would be good claimable land, and the other half no good. In some places I can see the sand in the road that drifts off the unbroken ground. We stopped for dinner at Mr. Newell's brother's, whose wife is a daughter of Mr. Kuhn's, and then the final start is made for the Niobrara. The country looks so different to me now as I return over the same road behind horses, and the sun is bright and warm. The tenters have gone to building log houses, and there are now four houses to be seen along the way. Am told most of the land is taken.
We pass close to one of the houses, where the husband is plowing and the wife dropping seed corn; and we stop for a few minutes, that I may learn one way of planting sod corn. The dropper walks after the plow and drops the corn close to the edge of the furrow, and it comes up between the edges of the sod. Another way is to cut a hole in the sod with an ax, and drop the corn in the hole, and step on it while you plant the next hill—I mean hole—of corn.
One little, lone, oak tree was all the tree seen along the road, and not a stone. I really miss the jolting of the stones of Pennsylvania roads. But strewed all along are pebbles, and in places perfect beds of them. I cannot keep my eyes off the ground for looking at them, and, at last, to satisfy my wishing for "a lot of those pretty pebbles to carry home," Mr. N. stops, and we both alight and try who can find the prettiest. As I gather, I cannot but wonder how God put these pebbles away up here!
Reader, if all this prairie land was waters, it would make a good sized sea, not a storm tossed sea but water in rolling waves. It looks as though it had been the bed of a body of water, and the water leaked out or ran down the Niobrara river, cutting out the canyons as it went, and now the sea has all gone to grass.
Mr. N. drives close to the edge of an irregular series of canyons that I may have a better view.
"I do wish you would tell me, Mr. N., how these canyons have been made?"
"Why, by the action of the wind and water."
"Yes, I suppose; but looks more like the work of an immense scoop-shovel, and all done in the dark; they are so irregular in shape, size, and depth."