“Certainly,” said his uncle. “The homestead law was passed by Congress to encourage the settlement of the lands belonging to the Government. You see there is an abundance of these lands,––so much, in fact, that they have not yet been all laid off into townships and sections and quarter-sections. If a large number of homestead claims are taken up, then other settlers will be certain to come in and buy the lands that the Government has to sell; and that will make settlements grow throughout that locality.”
“Why should they buy when they can get land for nothing by entering and taking possession, just as we are going to do?” interrupted Oscar.
“Because, my son, many of the men cannot make oath that they have not taken up Government land somewhere else; and then, again, many men are going into land speculations, and they don’t care to wait five years to prove up a homestead claim. So they go upon the land, stake out their claim, and the Government sells it to them outright at the rate of a dollar and a quarter an acre.”
“Cash down?” asked Charlie.
“No, they need not pay cash down unless they choose. The Government allows them a year to pay up in. But land speculators who make a business of this sort of thing generally pay up just as soon as they are allowed to, and then, if they get a good offer to sell out, they sell and 99 move off somewhere else, and do the same thing over again.”
“People have to pay fees, don’t they, Uncle Charlie?” said Sandy. “I know they used to talk about land-office fees, in Dixon. How much does it cost in fees to enter a piece of Government land?”
“I think it is about twenty-five dollars––twenty-six, to be exact,” replied Mr. Bryant. “There comes Younkins,” he added, looking down the trail to the river bank below.
The boys had been washing and putting away the breakfast things while this conversation was going on, and Sandy, balancing in the air a big tin pan on his fingers, asked: “How much land can we fellows enter, all told?” The two men laughed.
“Well, Alexander,” said his father, ceremoniously, “We two ‘fellows,’ that is to say, your Uncle Charlie and myself, can enter one hundred and sixty acres apiece. Charlie will be able to enter the same quantity three years from now, when he will be twenty-one; and as for you and Oscar, if you each add to your present years as many as will make you twenty-one, you can tell when you will be able to enter and own the same amount of land; provided it is not all gone by that time. Good morning, Mr. Younkins.” Sandy’s pan came down with a crash on the puncheon floor.
The land around that region of the Republican 100 Fork had been surveyed into sections of six hundred and forty acres each; but it would be necessary to secure the services of a local surveyor to find out just where the boundaries of each quarter-section were. The stakes were set at the corner of each section, and Younkins thought that by pacing off the distance between two corners they could get at the point that would mark the middle of the section; then, by running lines across from side to side, thus: