“Have you, Ted?” Jean smiled. “That’s because you have found out what my mother calls the brotherhood of common folks. She says that when life is all sifted down, we’re only a lot of little children holding hands, and we must hold tight, or the next one to us falls down.”
“An endless chain of kindness,” Ruth added.
The lamps in the tourist car were being lighted. It was their last night on the train. Outside, the country looked bare and scorched. Ted stared out thoughtfully. And Polly began to sing softly under her breath.
“Guide me, oh, thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land,
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold me in thy powerful hand.”
“That should be the homeseekers’ hymn, I think,” said Isabel; “that, and ‘Lead, Kindly Light.’”
“I like ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ better,” said Ted. “It must take a lot of courage and hope to come out here and start all over again.”
“Faith, most of all, Ted,” Jean put in. “Mother says she used up pecks of mustard seed before she caught sight of the promise fulfilled. That’s a parable, so don’t look puzzled, Sue. But to those who really love it and believe in it, our new West is more than a promised land. It is like a great, brooding motherland, I think.”