That day, and those that followed, were busy, busy days. The oxen were tired and footsore with their long journey, and we decided to let them rest, but Jack and I took no holiday. I was determined that on the very first day I would plant some crop on my farm, so I started at once to spade up land for a garden. Have you ever turned the first sod on a quarter section with a spade, and then stopped and looked over the vast expanse before you? It made me humble, but not discouraged. There is something almost sacramental in turning over the fresh sod of the prairies--sod which no plow, no human hand, has ever turned before. If you have a mind for serious thinking it brings you very close to your Creator. Perhaps that is why I preferred to dig that first little plot with a spade instead of making use of Buck and Bright on the plow. Buck and Bright were not conducive to piety. After all, it is remarkable how much prairie sod one can turn over in a day with a spade--sod with no stones nor tough, brushy roots to interrupt progress, but only the gentle scraping of steel against loam and the ripping of little grassy tendons to mark your time as, foot by foot, you throw the trenches of civilization one furrow farther west. By mid-afternoon I had spaded quite a sizable garden plot. Then I broke the clods as best I could and planted a few rows of potatoes. The following day I continued my digging, and that evening, with assistance from Jean and Marjorie, planted onions, carrots, beets, lettuce and radish. We agreed that by the third day the oxen should be ready for the road again, and Jack was away soon after sunrise of the bright spring morning. He took the trail for the railway station some thirty miles to the south, and the sound of his wagon rumbling along over the soft earth came floating back on the breeze as a sort of accompaniment to the bellicose voice which Jack affected when he was ox-driving. The forenoon was well gone before the slow-moving speck faded out of sight on the skyline. My next effort was the digging of a cellar. The location of our shack had to be decided upon, and for this I called Marjorie and Jean into council. We agreed that it should be close to one brow of the ravine, and that Jack should build his close to the other, so that each would command an unbroken view of his neighbour. Perhaps even then we had some premonition of the spectre of Loneliness creeping down upon us through the night-mists of the summer or the snow-wraiths of the blizzard, and already we were planning our lines of defence. "How many rooms will there be?" asked Jean. "Let me see--reception-room, living-room, parlor, dining-room--you must at least have that." "We shall," I said, "and one door will lead into them all. A room is anything you call it. We can change the name as we change the purpose. One moment it is kitchen, the next, living-room, and so on."