The brave pioneers, leaving old homes in other lands to find new ones in this, have made sacrifices of kindred, family ties, and early associations, at the behest of some stern necessity (it may be growing out of bankruptcy of business, though not of pride and honor, or manly character), or ambition to be peers among their fellows. Or, mayhap, the change was made by promptings of parental love for children whose prospects in life might be made better thereby, and the family unity still preserved by locating lands in close proximity, where from his home the father might by some well-known signal call his children all around him. Where the faithful watch-dog’s warning was echoed in every yard, and thus gave information of passing events worthy of his attention enacting in the neighborhood. Where the smoke from cabin chimneys high arose, mingled in mid air, and died away in peaceful brotherhood. Where the blended prayer of parent and child might go up in joint procession from the school-house-churches through the shining trees that answered well for steeples then, or passing through clouds to Him who had made so many little groves, where homes might be made and prepared the most beautiful spots on earth for final resting-place, where each, as the journey of life should be over, might be laid away by kindred hands, far from the hurrying, noisy crowds, who rush madly along, or stop only to envy the dead the ground they occupy, and speculate how much filthy lucre each sepulchre is worth. Others went to the new country with downy cheeks of youth, and others still with full-grown beards, who were fired with high ambition to make name, fame, home, and fortune, carrying underneath their sombre hats bright ideas and wonderful possibilities, with hearts full of manly purposes, beating quickly at the mention of mother’s name or father’s pride, sister’s prayer or brother’s love. And with all these to buoy them up, would build homes on gentle slope, or in shady grove, and thus become by slow degrees “one among us.” I was with the first who went to this new country, and I know whereof I write. I know more than I have told, or will tell, lest by accident I betray the petty jealousies that cropped out; when Yankee-boys, forgetting the girls they left behind them, would pay more attention to our western girls than was agreeable to “us boys.” Others there were who had followed the retreating footsteps of the Indians. These were connecting links between two kinds of life, savage and civilized. Good enough people in their way, but they could not bear the hum of machinery, or the glitter of church-spires, because the first drove back the wild game, and the devotees who worshipped beneath the second, forbade the exercise of careless and wicked noises mingling with songs of praise.