From this small beginning has now grown up a fine neighborhood with a good community church and congregation; rural mail delivery; phones; modern homes, and good roads. Among those who have helped build this splendid community should be mentioned besides those above, the Moen families, the Aalbus; the Fagerhaugs--Iver and Arnt; the Stolen brothers--Emericht, Olalf, and Martin; Vognild brothers; Bjorlos; Bjerkagers; Petersons, and others. It is a matter of just pride that out of this little group above mentioned, no less than seven young men served in the Great War. These were Reuben Peterson, Martin Peterson, Hugo Peterson, Ole Sneve, Martin Stolen, William Linsted, and Roy Goffin. Two of these--Reuben Peterson and Ole Sneve--were at the "front" for months and went thru some of the bloodiest battles of the War.--_Editor._ CHAPTER XVIII LOOKING DOWN THE TRAIL TO THE YEARS AHEAD We have followed the trail of the first immigrants for more than half a century, from the time they left the old home until they have become an integral part of the life of the new home of their adoption. So marvelous has this experience been that to many it must seem almost like a dream or fairy tale. They came out of a land of poverty and hampering restrictions, social, political and religious. They found an opportunity to attain a comfortable living and a chance to help at the big job of working out a democracy. They came strangers to a strange land, they have already come to share in every position of trust and honor in the new land, with the exception of the presidency, including a number of governors. They came out a comparatively small company; they have become a multitude, there being already in this country more people of Norse extraction than the whole population of the mother country. As we look around us among the particular groups here described, and see that the fourth generation from the pioneers is already coming on, the thought comes to us: "What of these people and their descendants a hundred years from now?" As I, in vision and imagination, put my ears to the ground of present prophetic facts and tendencies, I hear the distant tramp of great multitudes out of the oncoming generations. Who are these multitudes which no man can number? They are the sons and daughters of the immigrant, tho outwardly indistinguishable from the Mayflower product which, too, are the descendants of immigrants. But while the Norse or Scandinavian immigrant is more quickly amalgamated in the sense of taking on all the outward colorings of his new environment than any other nationality, what, if any, will be his distinctive impress upon, or contribution to, the life he has come to share?