OCTOBER 24.
So here I am—settled at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule team t'pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin'; the boys're strung along the side of the bunk-house t'rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler'n a floor; and—up over it all—the moon, white and smilin'.
Then, outen the door nigh where the sunflowers're growin', mebbe she'll come—a slim, little figger in white. And, if it's plenty warm, and not too late, why, she'll be totin' the smartest, cutest—— ∗ ∗ ∗ That's my little wife—that's Macie, now—a-singin' to the kid!
ELEANOR GATES,
in Cupid: the Cow-Punch.
OCTOBER 25.
Let this be known, that a west-land ranch is no more than a farm, and a farm at the outermost edge of man's dominions is forever a school and a field of strife and a means of grace to those who live thereon.
∗ ∗ ∗ The ways of the earth, the ways of the seasons, the ways of the elements, these had something to impart, eternally. And man, no longer in the bond with the wild things all about him, wages ceaseless war against them, to protect his crops and the fowls and the animals that have come beneath his guardian-ship and know no laws of the air-folk, the brush-folk, or the forest-folk with whom they were once in brotherhood.
PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS,
in Chatwit, the Man-Talk Bird.