“Just think of the sorrow we’ll bring upon ’em in their closing days, dear! Then there’s that awful journey for us and the children through more than two thousand miles of unsettled country, among wild beasts and wilder Indians. Hadn’t we better let well-enough alone, and remain where we are comfortable?” “A six months’ journey across the untracked continent, with ox teams and dead-ax wagons, won’t be a summer picnic; I’ll admit that. But the experience will come only one day at a time, and we can stand it. It will be like a whipping,—it will feel good when it is over and quits hurting.” “You are well and strong, John, but you know I have never been like myself since that awful time when your brother Joe got into that trouble. It was at the time of Harry’s birth, you know. You didn’t mean to neglect me, dear, but you had to do it.” “There, there, little wife!” placing his hand over her mouth. “Let the dead past bury its dead. Never mention Joe to me again. And never fear for a minute that you and the children won’t be taken care of.” “I beg your pardon, John!” and the wife shrank back against the lattice and shivered. The protruding thorn of a naked locust bough scratched her cheek, and the red blood trickled down. “I need your encouragement, in this time of all times, Annie. You mustn’t fail me now,” he said, speaking in an injured tone. “Have I ever failed you yet, my husband?” “I can’t say that you have, Annie. But you worry too much; you bore a fellow so. Just brace up; don’t anticipate trouble. It’ll come soon enough without your meeting it halfway. You ought to consider the welfare of the children.” “Have I ever lived for myself, John?” “No, no; but you fret too much. I suppose it’s a woman’s way, though, and I must stand it. There’s the chance of a lifetime before us, Annie.” He added after a pause, “The Oregon Donation Land Law that was passed by Congress nearly two years ago won’t be a law always. United States Senators in the farthest East are already urging its repeal. We’ve barely time, even by going now, to get in on the ground-floor. Then we’ll get, in our own right, to have and to hold, in fee simple, as the lawyers say, a big square mile of the finest land that ever rolled out o’ doors.” “Will there be no mortgage to eat us up with interest, and no malaria to shake us to pieces, John? And will you keep the woodpile away from the front gate, and make an out-of-the-way lane for the cows, so they won’t come home at night through the front avenue?”