A Prairie-Schooner Princess

by Mary K. Maule

RUTH MAKES A DISCOVERY

The winter passed swiftly. With the school to take up their time and attention in the daytime and games and talk and popping corn and telling stories in the evening the time crept by, and almost before they knew it it was spring.

March brought sunny days, thawing weather and big rains, with blue skies and balmy winds that soon melted the snow and sent it scurrying in foaming torrents down the beds of all the creeks and streams.

Very soon after the snows began to go a wonderful thing happened.

They woke one morning to see a train of emigrant wagons coming across the plains, and that day a new settler came to the Blue River, bringing with him a wife, two sons and a daughter.

They came directly to the Penimans' homestead for advice and directions, and the original settlers on the river were delighted beyond measure to find them refined and intelligent people, who, like themselves, had desired to better their condition and had dared the dangers of the frontier life to provide themselves with wider opportunities and a better home.

The name of the family was James, and they came from Iowa. The two sons, Herbert and Arthur, were seventeen and fifteen, while the daughter, Beatrice, was nearly the same age as Ruth, a pretty, fair-haired, slender girl, with soft brown eyes that looked like the heart of a pansy.

They remained with the Peniman family that day, and the two families fraternized immediately. It was a great joy to those who had been living in such lonely conditions to meet and talk with people from the outside world. Mrs. James and Mrs. Peniman exchanged confidences in regard to heating and housing and obtaining fuel and provisions, the men talked farm-land and crops and sod houses and dugouts, while the young people explored the river and became friends from the very beginning.

Few papers or news of any kind had reached the homestead during the winter, and Joshua Peniman heard with a sinking heart of the slavery agitation that seemed to be continually increasing and growing daily a greater menace to the security of the nation. Joe, too, was listening to the news from the outside world with great interest. Herbert James, a tall, fine-looking, manly young fellow of seventeen, who had been attending school in the East, was full of the threatening conditions of the country. He talked of the issue with keen, intelligent interest, and Joe listened with a strange thrill passing through his breast. The two boys soon became fast friends, while Lige and Arthur, who was past fifteen, also struck up a great friendship. Ruth, usually shy and quiet with strangers, expanded sunnily in the company of Beatrice, and she and Nina soon became fast friends with her, a friendship that endured to the very end of their lives.

Nothing else could have brought the satisfaction and joy to the Peniman family as did the coming of this pleasant, intelligent family. It brought to them companionship, added protection from the dangers that always surround the pioneer, and the added incentive of a new element in the making of their home on the prairies. The whole Peniman family went with them to select their location, which they had all decided should be very near, planned with them the site of their house, helped them in building it, assisted them in every way through those first hard months that are the lot of the pioneer in a new country, and gave them the benefit of their valuable experience. The James family settled on a tract of land about half a mile to the west of them, and it was a relief to each family to know that the other was within call.