The hotels in Calias had charged one dollar the person and some of the large ones had made small fortunes, while the saloons were said to have averaged over one thousand dollars a day.
After the opening, land sold like hot hamburger sandwiches had a few weeks before.
CHAPTER XXV
THE SCOTCH GIRL
IT had been just four years since I bought the relinquishment and seven since leaving southern Illinois. I had been very successful in farming although I had made some very poor deals in the beginning, and when my crops were sold that season I found I had made three thousand, five hundred dollars. Futhermore, I had in the beginning sought to secure the best land in the best location and had succeeded. I had put two hundred eighty acres under cultivation, with eight head of horses—I had done a little better in my later horse deals—and had machinery, seed and feed sufficient to farm it. My efforts in the seven years had resulted in the ownership of land and stock to the value of twenty thousand dollars and was only two thousand dollars in debt and still under twenty-five years of age.
During the years I had spent on the Little Crow I had "kept batch" all the while until that summer. A Scotch family had moved from Indiana that spring consisting of the father, a widower, two sons and two daughters. One of the boys worked for me and as it was much handier, I boarded with them.
The older of the two girls was a beautiful blonde maiden of twenty summers, who attended to the household duties, and considering the small opportunities she had to secure an education, was an unusually intelligent girl. She had composed some verses and songs but not knowing where to send them, had never submitted them to a publisher. I secured the name of a company that accepted some of her writings and paid her fifty dollars for them. She was so anxious to improve her mind that I took an interest in her and as I received much literature in the way of newspapers and magazines and read lots of copy-right books, I gave them to her. She seemed delighted and appreciated the gifts.