Left on the Prairie

by Noel West

Little Jack Wilson had been born in England; but when he was quite a baby his parents had sailed across the sea, taking him with them, and settled out on one of the distant prairies of America. Of course, Jack was too small when he left to remember anything of England himself, but as he grew older he liked to hear his father and mother talk about the old country where he and they had been born, and to which they still seemed to cling with great affection. Sometimes, as they looked out-of-doors over the burnt-up prairie round their new home, his father would tell him about the trim green fields they had left so far behind them, and say with a sigh, 'Old England was like a garden, but this place is nothing but a wilderness!'

Longview was the name of the lonely western village where George Wilson, his wife, and Jack had lived for eight years, and although we should not have thought it a particularly nice place, they were very happy there. Longview was half-way between two large mining towns, sixty miles apart, and as there was no railway in those parts, the people going to and from the different mines were obliged to travel by waggons, and often halted for a night at Longview to break the journey.

It was a very hot and dusty village in summer, as there were no nice trees to give pleasant shade from the sun, and the staring rows of wooden houses that formed the streets had no gardens in front to make them look pretty. In winter it was almost worse, for the cold winds came sweeping down from the distant mountains and rushed shrieking across the plains towards the unprotected village. They whirled the snow into clouds, making big drifts, and whistled round the frame houses as if threatening to blow them right away.

Jack was used to it, however, and, in spite of the heat and cold, was a happy little lad. His parents had come to America, in the first place, because times were so bad in England, and secondly, because Mrs. Wilson's only sister had emigrated many years before them to Longview, and had been so anxious to have her relations near her.

Aunt Sue, as Jack called her, had married very young, and accompanied her husband, Mat Byrne, to the West. He was a miner, and when he worked got good wages; but he was an idle, thriftless fellow, who soon got into disfavour with his employers, and a year or two after the Wilsons came he took to drink, and made sad trouble for his wife and his three boys. George Wilson had expostulated with him often, and begged him to be more steady, but Mat was jealous of his honest brother-in-law, who worked so hard and was fairly comfortable, and therefore he resented the kind words of advice, and George was obliged to leave him alone.

George Wilson made his living by freighting—that is, carrying goods from place to place by waggons, as there was no rail by which to send things. Sometimes, when he took extra long journeys, he would have to leave his wife and boy for some weeks to keep each other company.

'Take care of your mother, Jack, my boy,' he would say, before starting. 'She has no man to look after her or do things for her but ye till I get home.' And right well did the little fellow obey orders. He was a most helpful boy for his age, and was devoted to his mother, who was far from strong. He got up early every morning, and did what are called the chores in America; these are all the small daily jobs that have to be done in and around a house. First, he chopped wood and lit a fire in the stove; after that he carried water in a bucket and filled the kettle, and then leaving the water to boil, he laid the breakfast-table and ground the coffee.

When breakfast was over, he ran off to school, and afterwards had many a good romp with his cousins, Steve, Hal, and Larry Byrne, who lived quite close to his home. Jack was very fond of his Aunt Sue; she was so like his gentle mother. He often ran in to see her, but he always fled when he heard his Uncle Mat coming, whose loud, rough voice frightened him.

Jack was very sorry for his cousins, as they did not seem to care a bit for their father; indeed, at times they were very much afraid of him, and Steve, the eldest, who was a big fellow, nearly sixteen, told Jack that if it wasn't for his mother, he would run away from home and go off to be a cowboy, instead of working as a miner with his father. But he knew what a sad trouble it would be to the poor woman if he went away from her, and he was too good a son to give her pain.

When his father was away freighting, Jack, even while he was at play, kept a good look-out across the prairie, watching every day for his return. He could see for miles, and when he spied the white top of the familiar waggon appearing in the distance, he would rush home shouting, 'Mother! Mother! Daddy's coming! I see the waggon ever such a long way off.' And then the two would get to work and prepare a nice supper for him.