“If nobody but Indians killed buffalo,” said Mr. Bryant, “there would be no danger of their ever being all killed off. But, in course of time, 123 I suppose this country will all be settled up, and then there will be railroads, and after that the buffalo will have to go. Just now, any white man that can’t saddle his horse and go out and kill a buffalo before breakfast thinks they are getting scarce. But I have heard some of the soldiers say that away up north of here, a little later in the season, the settlers cannot keep their crops, the buffalo roam all over everything so.”
“For my part,” put in Charlie, “I am not in the least afraid that the buffalo will be so plenty around these parts that they will hurt our crops; and I’d just like to see a herd come within shooting distance.” And here he raised his arms, and took aim along an imaginary rifle.
Later in the forenoon, when the two younger boys had reached the end of the two rows in which they had been planting, Sandy straightened himself up with an effort, and said, “This is leg-weary work, isn’t it, Oscar? I hate work, anyhow,” he added, discontentedly, leaning on the top of his dibble, and looking off over the wide and green prairie that stretched toward the setting sun. “I wish I was an Indian.”
Oscar burst into a laugh, and said, “Wish you were an Indian!––so you could go hunting when you like, and not have any work to do? Why, Sandy, I didn’t think that of you.”
Sandy colored faintly, and said, “Well, I do hate work, honestly; and it is only because I 124 know that I ought, and that father expects me to do my share, that I do it, and never grumble about it. Say, I never do grumble, do I, Oscar?” he asked earnestly.
“Only once in a while, when you can’t help it, Sandy. I don’t like work any better than you do; but it’s no use talking about it, we’ve got to do it.”
“I always feel so in the spring,” said Sandy, very gravely and with a little sigh, as he went pegging away down another furrow.
Forty acres of land was all that the settlers intended to plant with corn, for the first year. Forty acres does not seem a very large tract of land to speak of, but when one sees the area marked out with a black furrow, and realizes that every foot of it must be covered with the corn-planter, it looks formidable. The boys thought it was a very big piece of land when they regarded it in that way. But the days soon flew by; and even while the young workers were stumping over the field, they consoled themselves with visions of gigantic ripe watermelons and mammoth pumpkins and squashes that would regale their eyes before long. For, following the example of most Kansas farmers, they had stuck into many of the furrows with the corn the seeds of these easily grown vines.
“Keep the melons a good way from the pumpkins, and the squashes a good way from both, if you don’t want a bad mixture,” said Uncle Aleck to 125 the boy settlers. Then he explained that if the pollen of the squash-blossoms should happen to fall on the melon-blossoms, the fruit would be neither good melon nor yet good squash, but a poor mixture of both. This piece of practical farming was not lost on Charlie; and when he undertook the planting of the garden spot which they found near the cabin, he took pains to separate the cucumber-beds as far as possible from the hills in which he planted his cantaloupe seeds. The boys were learning while they worked, even if they did grumble occasionally over their tasks.