My father, a man of sixty-five, though still actively concerned with a wide wheat farm in South Dakota, had agreed to aid me in maintaining this common dwelling place in Wisconsin provided he could return to Dakota during seeding and again at harvest. He was an eagle-eyed, tireless man of sixty-five years of age, New England by origin, tall, alert, quick-spoken and resolute, the kind of natural pioneer who prides himself on never taking the back trail. In truth he had yielded most reluctantly to my plan, influenced almost wholly by the failing health of my mother, to whom the work of a farm household had become an intolerable burden. As I had gained possession of the premises early in November we were able to eat our Thanksgiving Dinner in our new home, happy in the companionship of old friends and neighbors. My mother and my Aunt Susan were entirely content. The Garlands seemed anchored at last. II To the Readers of "A Son of the Middle Border" In taking up and carrying forward the theme of "A Son of the Middle Border" I am fully aware of my task's increasing difficulties, realizing that I must count on the clear understanding and continuing good will of my readers. First of all, you must grant that the glamor of childhood, the glories of the Civil War, the period of prairie conquest which were the chief claims to interest in the first volume of my chronicle can not be restated in these pages. The action of this book moves forward into the light of manhood, into the region of middle age. Furthermore, its theme is more personal. Its scenes are less epic. It is a study of individuals and their relationships rather than of settlements and migrations. In short, "A Daughter of the Middle Border" is the complement of "A Son of the Middle Border," a continuation, not a repetition, in which I attempt to answer the many questions which readers of the first volume have persistently put to me. "Did your mother get her new daughter?" "How long did she live to enjoy the peace of her Homestead?" "What became of David and Burton?" "Did your father live to see his grandchildren?" These and many other queries, literary as well as personal, are--I trust--satisfactorily answered in this book. Like the sequel to a novel, it attempts to account for its leading characters and to satisfy the persistent interest which my correspondents have so cordially expressed. It remains to say that the tale is as true as my memory will permit--it is constructed only by leaving things out. If it reads, as some say, like fiction, that result is due not to invention but to the actual lives of the characters involved. Finally this closes my story of the Garlands and McClintocks and the part they took in a marvelous era in American settlement. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS BOOK I CHAPTER PAGE