“I want to show you Kansas,” said Hugh, “and there is no better way for you to meet the people and familiarize yourself with their customs. The recent heavy rain has made the country look habitable again. If the rains had only come before the hot winds, why—we would have had no hot winds, and plenty instead of poverty would now be the farmer’s lot, to say nothing of my own condition.”
The morning was an ideal one. There was an exhilarating tonic in the soft west winds. Vast herds dotted the prairie. The catde, in their lazy, contented way, went on biting shorter the short, green buffalo-grass.
A little way on, at the side of the road, lay a cowboy reading, while his bronco was near him, munching and browsing. As they drew near, Hugh exclaimed, “Why, it’s Seaton Cornwall, my English friend!” They reined their horses and dismounted.
Seaton Cornwall arose from where he had been lying, laid aside his book and came toward them. After an introduction, Doctor Redfield observed: “I see you pass some of your time reading. An interesting novel, I suppose?”
“No, I was reading ‘Plutarch’s Lives,’ replied Cornwall. Since leaving Oxford I have never been able to give up entirely my admiration for some of the old masters, and, notwithstanding my home is on a catde range, I still find great pleasure in keeping up my studies.”
“Mr. Cornwall,” interposed Hugh, “is one of my earliest acquaintances in Kansas, and, while he is of English birth and a lover of his native land, still, he admires America and American institutions.”
“Yes,” said Cornwall, “instead of hearing the music of ‘God Save the Queen’ out here, or even my ‘My Country, ‘T is of Thee,’ I listen to the lowing of herds, the bawl of mavericks, the yelp of coyotes, and the howl of wolves. However, I am not lonely, for I have quite a number of books with me.”
“I hope you like America?” Doctor Redfield interrogated.
“Very much, indeed,” replied Cornwall. “There are opportunities here which England can never give to her people. I love the land of my birth, I love Englishmen and English ways,—I none the less, however, love democratic America and the opportunities that it affords. We are one race, anyway, speaking a common language and closely allied on all international subjects.”
“England,” he continued, “is seriously misunderstood by many in America. This misunderstanding is occasioned by adventurers with titles, questionable or otherwise, who do not represent the true sentiment of the mother country. Personally, I believe that a country which affords me a home and protection, and which I have adopted for my own, merits my loyalty and unswerving devotion; therefore, although not an American born, I am in sentiment American, in all that the term implies. Indeed, I have no patience with that class of my countrymen who omit no opportunity to impress upon the people of this country the superiority of England and her people. It is a cockney trait at the best, and does not represent the true sentiments of England toward her American cousins.”