"I feel as if I'd be'n attendin' my own funeral," said Anson, after they had got into their wagon and the train had gone out of sight in the haze of the prairie. "Well, it's pretty tough on that child to go off that way. To her the world is all a great mystery. When you an' I go to heaven it won't be any greater change for us than this change for Flaxen--every face strange, every spot new." "Wal, she ain't far away but we can look out for her. She ain't poor n'r fatherless as long as we live, hey?" And then silence fell on them. As they were jogging homeward they saw the gray gulls rise from the sod and go home to the lake for the night. They heard the crickets' evening chorus broaden and deepen to an endless and monotonous symphony, while behind fantastic, thin, and rainless clouds the sun sank in unspeakable glory of colour. The air, perfectly still, was cool almost to frostiness, and, far above, the fair stars broke from the lilac and gold of the sun-flushed sky. Lights in the farm-houses began to appear. Once or twice Anson said: "She's about at Summit now. I hope she's chirked up." They met threshing-crews going noisily home to supper. Once they met an "outfit," engine, tank, separator, all moving along like a train of cars, while every few minutes the red light from the furnace gleamed on the man who was stuffing the straw into the furnace-door, bringing out his face so plainly that they knew him. As the night grew deeper, an occasional owl flapped across the fields in search of mice. "We're bound to miss her like thunder, Bert; no two ways about that. Can't help but miss her on the cookin', hey?" Bert nodded without looking up. As they came in sight of home at last, and saw the house silhouetted against the faintly yellow sky, Ans said with a sigh: "No light an' no singin' there to-night." CHAPTER IX. "BACHING" IT AGAIN. "The fact is, Flaxen has sp'iled us," laughed Anson, a couple of days later, when Bert was cursing the soggy biscuit. "We've got so high-toned that we can't stand common cookin'. Time was we'd 'a' thought ourselves lucky to git as good as that. Rec'lect them flapjacks we ust to make? By mighty! you could shoe a horse with 'em. Say, I wish I could jest slip in an' see what she's a-doin' about now, hey?" "She's probably writin' a letter. She won't do much of anythin' else for the first week." "I hope you're right," said Anson. They got a queer little letter every Wednesday, each one for several weeks pitifully like the others. Dear boys i thought i would take my pen in hand to tell you i dont like it one bit the school is just as mene as it can be the girls do laugh at me they call me toe-head. if i catch em right i will fix their heads. They is one girl who i like she is from pipestone she dont know no moren i do she says my dress is pritty--ol nig an the drake all rite i wish i was home. Elga.