13. How was the State capital selected? THE HOMES OF KANSAS The cabin homes of Kansas! How modestly they stood, Along the sunny hillsides, Or nestled in the wood. They sheltered men and women, Brave-hearted pioneers; Each one became a landmark Of Freedom’s trial years. The sod-built homes of Kansas! Though built of mother earth, Within their walls so humble Are souls of sterling worth. Though poverty and struggle May be the builder’s lot, The sod house is a castle, Where failure enters not. The dugout homes of Kansas! The lowliest of all, They hold the homestead title As firm as marble hall. Those dwellers in the cavern, Beneath the storms and snows, Shall make the desert places To blossom as the rose. The splendid homes of Kansas! How proudly now they stand Amid the fields and orchards, All o’er the smiling land. They rose up where the cabins Once marked the virgin soil, And are the fitting emblems Of patient years of toil. God bless the homes of Kansas! From poorest to the best; The cabin of the border, The sod house of the west; The dugout, low and lonely, The mansion, grand and great; The hands that laid their hearthstones Have built a mighty State. ――SOL MILLER. CHAPTER XII PIONEER LIFE [Illustration: A DUGOUT.] =Comforts of Life Receive Little Attention.= The seven Territorial years had brought freedom to Kansas, but the struggle had left the pioneers little time or strength for building better homes, improving their farms, or establishing public institutions. The energy that might have accomplished these things had been given to fighting and to politics. When Kansas became a State, the people had almost as few of the comforts of life as when they first came to the Territory. A few of them had come with little idea of the hardships and privations of frontier life, and others had believed that such conditions would last but a short time. Many of these, of course, grew discouraged and returned to their eastern homes. But the great body of Kansas pioneers had come with the twofold purpose of securing homes and making a free state, and were not to be discouraged. They had come to stay. [Illustration: IN PIONEER DAYS.]