The Cabin on the Prairie

nd I'm glad!" and Tom Jones lea

overeign," or the son of one, free in his habits as the Indian that roamed the prairies of his frontier home? He had not heard of "the latest fashion," and paid no attention to the cut of his garments, although, it must be confessed, he sometimes wished them a trifle more spruce and comfortable. His home, as I have hinted, was on the prairie. Nevertheless, the family domain was an unpretending one. Less than an acre, fenced in the rudest manner, enclosed the "farm and farm buildings," the latter consisting of a small log house and log pigsty, the cabin, at the time our sketch opens, being, it is evident, at least two seasons old–a fact which serves to show the more plainly the poverty and thriftlessne

have been pronounced philosophic, had he been a college professor–scratched his head. Then, with his ragged sleeve, he wiped the sweat from his brow, leaving a streak of black that made that part of his face present quite a different appearance from what it did, reader, when you and I noticed it a moment ago. And going to the cabin, he returned with a rickety basket, and, commencing at the lower end of the field, began picking up 12 the potatoes that had been left drying in the sun. A goodly crop had the little patch produced; for the vegetable decays and fertilizing rains and snows of centuries had covered the prairie with a dressing with which art could not compete, and it was more difficult not to get a harvest from th

e of Uncle Sam's unsettled lands; this living off the country, gypsying in the woods and on the prairies; this two thirds savage and one third civilized mode of putting a growing family through the world; and if you were to see Mr. Jones seated in the emigrant wagon, reins in hand and pipe in mouth, or with shouldered rifle on the track of a deer, you would say that such a life was eminently agreeable to him. Every man is made for something; and you would say that he was cut out for a wandering frontier loafer, who gets his subsistence by doing the least possible work in the easiest possible manner, and hunting and

thout stumbling against a shanty or a house; and cart tracks are getting so plenty, I

broken crockery, and leaky black tea-pot, and ancient cooking-stove–the pipe of the latter running up through the wagon-

e vividly than we have now done. The result was a feeling of disgust, and a re

etter had flitted through his mind, only to make him moody and irritable. Doubtless these aspirations were due, in no small measure, to his mother–a woman much superior to her condition, but who, clinging to her husband with a pure and changeless love, accepted the privations of her lot without a murmur. Taken by her marriage from t

lf distant, and Tom and his father, with the neighbors generally, attended. How differently the gospel message affects different persons! Some are softened, others are hardened, 16 by it. Some are stirred up to certain duties, while, under the same sermon, others are incited to an entirely different train of thought and course of action. The effect on Tom of the sermons of the

y, and accomplish something? Why can I not go to the city to school this winter?" What an idea for him! It almost took hi

ied. "I can do anything honest; I

had always moved him deeply, and the 17 living truths of the gospel, as presented by the living preacher, had set the mental machinery in motion, until the decision to go from home in se

and then there will be nothing to keep me at home;" and he was about raising the

other mounted the fence, when, with a smart kick, the fawn sent Charley over on his back, and leaped into the enclosure. At this instant a bevy of flaxen-haired urchins, hatless, bonnetless,–Tom's brothers and sisters,–came whooping from the cabin, and joined the chase. In 18 a moment Tom had forgotten all his gloomy thoughts and high resolves, and was as eager as any of them, as they tried to secure the nimble prize.

to Charley; and the latter hastened to repair the bre

deer, slipping through the fingers of one and ano

! No, he isn't!" Amid such vociferations the children rushed on, pell-mell, till out of breath. Luckily, the brush fence was so thick 19 and high, being made of dead trees piled upon each other, that the animal co

s standing in the further corner of the field, as if waiting to see what they would do next. And

eye, advanced slowly, watching to seize him if he should attempt to spring away, when little Bub, who had been sent into the cabin by Tom, having g

ke 'i

roken, the little soldiers were tumbled together, with Tom on top of them, and the deer 20 stood almost

screamed Sarah fr

ll break my ar

Bob of Charley, as he spit the dirt from his m

I did

you

er, an' not fell on us so heavy," sobbed Sa

d at length the graceful creature, bewildered by the din, and foiled by numbers, was forced to surrender himself after another vigorous scramble, in which the b

they shouted in chorus as they foll

ou keep him to-ni

mptly answered Bub, at whi

e mischief-maker, "you will stick a stick

a bed-post, while a pen was built for his accommodation near t

little extra labor. What a task it would be to find all the potatoes, scattered and trampled into the rich earth as they were! and the bundles of corn had been broken from their bindings, and must be gathered together and refastened. To find and car

s to childhood and youth. Of vegetables they were not destitute; potatoes, corn, beans, and pumpkins they had in abundance since fall set in, if not before. Bread, milk, and meat were usually scarce with them. For the la

, a big crying infant the while tugging at her breast, and the house-work to do, it is not strange that while the children, fresh from romping in the bracing prairie air, were favored with a raven

e night, "when I am away and earning, w