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Home Seekers

By Mary Sanger Benson

I

AM SITTING in our little tent. Occasionally I lift my eyes to where a river-beautiful, majestic, winds its way toward the Pacific, and again to where vast lands of golden prune orchards gleam in the October sunshine.

To the left, on a lawn-like slope, ending abruptly at the river's edge, a thriving little city gracefully reclines beyond, clinging close to the horizon; a chain of snow-capped mountains stretch away into the dim distance. These mountains seem to beckon me toward them. I long to see what is just beyond. I am a wanderer-anxious, yet withal happy. Following is how it all came about:

Two years ago, owing to an unlucky speculation, we were made penniless. It so happened that my husband and I were practically invalids at the time, he being a sufferer from muscular rheumatism, while I had not fully recovered from a recent operation.

At length my husband started working for sixty dollars a month, but was unable to work steady on account of his health. With the price of butter at from forty-five to fifty cents a pound, eggs at fifty cents a dozen, and all other necessities in accordance, with a monthly output of fifteen dollars house-rent, two dollars for telephone, three dollars for light and water, and the additional expense of doctor bills and medicine, we soon found ourselves in debt-hopelessly so it seemed to us then.

We were desperate. Something must be done at once. We talked things over, and decided there was but one thing for us to do whereby we

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might free ourselves of this accumulating debt. Sell off the furniture and give up the cottage. At first thought of then renting furnished rooms, but that would cost money also. Then, too, it would be most unpleasant living in a crowded rooming house. I felt that we must have good air if nothing else. We finally decided on a tent a ten by twelve-which we bought for the sum of fourteen dollars, and stored it in our woodshed while we were selling off the furniture.

Those were dark days for my husband and myself, though I always tried to smile while in his presence, when taking a paltry sum for this beloved piece of furniture, or that, and only the lines on his face told of the strain he was undergoing. I know now it was not the breaking up of our home only which was causing him so many hours of worry-the bread and butter problem also was beginning to play a prominent part in his thoughts of the future. "When we have our health again," he would say, "then things also will be right again. We will have a home-not a fifteen dollar a month one-but one with our ground under us-our ground about us-acres of it," he would assure me.

We had never thought much about owning a home in the country until illhealth had overtaken us. Then there seemed no happier thought than the solitude of the wood or of the prairie, just so that we might have oceans of pure air, plenty of good, tillable soil, and a comfortable house to live in. But these things to me seemed a mere dot on the horizon of hope, and might only be obtained by Fate throwing

some miracle of good luck in our path- they could be raised to admit the air vay.

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nping season. I had been persuaded ito going several times, however, but ld always wished for my own home and bed when night began to fall. Then 1oughts of making my home in a ten by twelve tent were indeed most un

casant to me. I had not bothered my 1sband with them-thanks to my bettr judgment. The thoughts which

orried me most were of him. I felt sure he would be very much worse for O move. But he wasn't, and after a tie the tent and surroundings had ten on a most home-like appearance. We had rented two lots in the subes for one dollar a month on which to pitch our tent. We used a coal oil mp, and carried our water from a carby faucet, paying the water com1 any fifty cents a month for the use of it.

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and sunshine, or lowered to meet the three-foot wall at our pleasure. Over this chance opening we tacked mosquito bar. A door was also made from this material.

We had a cosy little room. In one corner our bed stood. My husband had built a frame five feet high to the front and side of it. To this I draped a soft, bright curtain. We usually kept the tent-side up in that corner, allowing the morning sun to beat in upon the bed, and where, too, the air always came to leave its sleep-inviting freshness. In another corner the cupboard stood. For this I had made a curtain from bleached sugar sacks. The table stood in the center of the tent. This was covered with white oil cloth; a dish of ferns usually sat upon the cloth, lending a pretty contrast to its snowy whiteness. To one side, our little stove sat, sending out its cheerful glow on a chilly night.

It was so easy to keep the place fresh and clean. I took delight in scrubbing the board floor, just to see how white it could be made. In the past it had been such a task to wipe off my linoleum-that was when I had six other rooms to sweep and make tidy.

That summer we raised a garden which was our pride and joy. It consisted of radishes, onions, lettuce, peas, beans, tomatoes, cabbage and potatoes. A dozen Wyandotte hens supplied us with fresh eggs, and we were able to buy the best of milkfourteen quarts for a dollar-it had always cost us ten cents a quart down in the city.

Things were coming our way again. During the first four months in the tent my husband, though gradually improving in health, was unable to work steadily-after that, however, he lost no time. At the end of the year we had saved out of our sixty dollars a month wages-three hundred and fifty dollars. One hundred and fifty of this, with the additional sum we had received from the sale of our furniture, went to pay our debts, leaving

HOME SEEKERS.

us clear a two hundred dollar bank account.

During those months in the tent, we had come to think more and more about owning a home. We talked of the vast acres lying idle in Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho, to be had for the paying of the small homestead fee. We had stacks of literature pertaining to these lands, and decided that somewhere among them lay a spot which we must some day call our home. We had drawn a mental picture of a cottage near a stream, overlooking fields of waving grain our cottage, our grain. It would be our productive soil when we had grown old and were no longer able to cope with that discouraging problem -the high cost of living. With this With this vision spurring to activity our every effort to gain a home, we one day found ourselves well on our way southward.

We had bought a poorly fed team, a wagon and wagon box with a vanlike top. Into the latter we had loaded our camp outfit, fixing the bed spring on hinges so that it could be raised and strapped to the side of the van. We usually kept the bed down, a canvas strapped securely over it, thus keeping it free from the dust of the road. The bed, when lowered, was two feet above the wagon box floor. In this space we stored our outfit while we were traveling.

Had any one told me a year and a half before I would one day be traveling through the country in a wagon, I would no doubt have emphatically exclaimed, "Impossible!" My health would not permit it even though I were desirous of doing so. I then felt the well and strong only capable of traveling in this manner, and true, there were days when we pitched our tent while the rain came down in torrentsdays when the roads were naught but rocks and water ditches. Even then we thought it a little queer how our appetite could be so good and our sleep so perfect of a night under such trying circumstances.

The fierceness of ore storm I think

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I shall always well remember. Darkness had fallen almost without war ing, forcing us to pitch our tent on the banks of a muddy, swift-running rive, where there was barely room for us and the road between the river, and the rugged, soapstone cliff to our left, while in front of us and behind u: stretched a wearisome, rain-washe road. We had with great difficult, pitched our tent within the shelter c a grove of saplings and prepared a hasty meal, wearing boots the whi and wading through little rivers and shallow lakes, between the table an! the stove. From out the darkness the rain and hail came pelting against th tent, while on the summit of the cli gigantic fir and cedar, their branches swaying in the tempest, succumbed to the fury of the storm and fell thunde: ing downward, crushing all in the pathway to a tangled mass of wrec age, and it seemed to be causing the very earth on which we stood to tremble with vibration.

That was our last storm. On the following day the sun shone out, flooding the earth with warmth and brightness. We had days and days of it, u:til hill and valley lay resplendent in shimmering shades of green, and th wood through which we traveled was a perfect fairyland of budding thing. It charmed and buoyed our spirits to such an extent that our hopes arose, and we looked eagerly in every direction seeking our heart's desire. We had come into the Land of Promise.

It was then we wanted most of al a home in the wood. Much of the land over which we were traveling was open to settlers. It could have been ours by observing the homestead rules, but we hesitated, after taking into consideration the great task of clearing the land for cultivation. There were the mammoth fir and cedar towering defiantly heavenward-the hemlock, maple, dogwood, spruce and dense undergrowth of huckleberry, devil clu calale and numerous other roots an! vines which matted the earth to its seeming last capacity. Often we let the team at a chance camping grour.J

and burrowed our way for a short distance into the dense thicket. The clearing of such land would indeed be a task, but the thriving converted lands adjoining these virgin forests assured us it would not be labor lost. We talked with the land owners, many of whom had felled the first tree on their now well-cleared fields, and we received only encouraging words from them. They had slashed and cleared a place on which to build their log huts. They had toiled on, year after year, true, but with their never lagging energy, the forest covering their acres had faded away, and had at last become a thing of memory only. Now it its stead one beheld orchards laden with pink and white blossoms, thrifty berry vines of many varieties, fields of well cultivated potatoes, now sprouting from earth, and onion beds so large that I marveled to know there was always a ready market for so many. The meadows, smelling sweet of red and white clover, kept the milch cows round and sleek, while here and there, in the fields of alfalfa, planted expressly for their use, "the real money makers," so the farmers called their hogs, could be seen waddling about, seemingly at peace with themselves and the world at large.

We learned that the valley land is much more productive than the higher land, though equally hard to clear. The prairie land of western Washington, which we had seen so highly advertised because of it requiring no clearing, we considered worthless.

One day, while we were traveling over a stretch of this land, we stopped to talk with a woman whose husband, being unable to make a living on their twenty acre ranch, had gone to the coal mines to work by the day. The woman wanted to sell her cow, as there was not enough grass on their land to feed it. She was offering the cow for fifteen dollars less than she had four months previously paid for it.

"What's the matter with the prairie land?" my husband had later asked of a valley farmer.

"Keep off of it," the farmer told him.

"I have two hundred acres of it up there in Western Washington. That's what it's worth." He snapped his fingers. "You'd better settle right here: this is God's country," he told us.

It did look awfully good to us there, but we were determined to push on to see more of other lands before settling permanently.

We were usually on our way at seven in the morning, making camp again at six, if possible. We stopped only an hour at noon, eating a cold lunch and feeding our horses grain. At night we pitched the tent, carried in the stove, table, chairs and what provisions we wanted; then, while I prepared the evening meal and fed the dog, my husband attended to the horses and gathered wood for the following day. Our supper usually consisted of potatoes, ham, eggs, bread, butter, coffee and some kind of fruit I had prepared on the previous evening. Before many days out, our horses had begun to look fine. They were indeed poor-looking specimens when we left our home city. Occasionally those we met would remark: "That's a fine team you have." This would make us both very happy. My husband's constant care of the team was beginning to reap its reward. He fed them on the best of hay and grain obtainable, curried them thoroughly both night and morning, and they never went to bed without warm blankets covering them.

It had taken nearly all of our two hundred dollar savings to buy our outfit-therefore my husband was forced to stop and work occasionally; when we had gained a few dollars, a new supply of provisions and horse-feed we were off again.

After traveling over much of two States we came to decide it would be better to have a few dollars before settling on land. Therefore we came to this busy place, where wages for man and team are six dollars a day. On arriving here we traded off our small team at a valuation of three hundred dollars, receiving in their stead a larger team and giving our note for a

A SONG OF HELOISE.

balance of one hundred and fifty dollars. We left our home city on March the first of this year, and it is now October. We have paid off the one hundred and fifty dollars balance-we have also bought and paid for a second team and sold the same only yesterday at a good profit.

I lift my eyes again to the snowcapped peaks. Two weeks hence I hope to be well on my way toward them. Who knows what we will find

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just beyond? Will ours be a home on the sage-brush plains where later yellow grain will wave in summer breezes, or will it be a nest hidden in the deep wood, which we love so well?

But this we do know: there is a way for many who are striving in the city to make good. Turn away from the old life, no matter what the cost to sentiment or pride, and get out beneath God's sky, where there is health and a chance to gain a home.

A SONG OF HELOISE

(After the Death of Abelard.)

Within these walls where all is holy calm

And wearied souls from sorrow find release,
Why in my breast doth dwell this sharp alarm,
When in my soul this throbbing tumult cease?
Drawn from the world, of it no more a part,
My thoughts I thrust toward heavenly desire,
I bow my head in penance-but my heart
Is burning with an all-consuming fire.

Oh, could I but forget you, Abelard,

Your image stands between me and my God!

These saintly women 'round their altar praying,
Their only wealth the hope of future bliss,
Far from their murmured words my mind is straying-
My treasure is the memory of a kiss!
At ev'ning, when with rosary and psalter,

They kneel to ask celestial powers to bless,
I cannot make response-my lips will falter,
Each bead recalls some tender, sweet caress.
What joys can Heaven hold for me
Who once hath tasted ecstasy?

They say that Abelard is dead. I wonder,-
As on my way I go with lagging feet,-
Can Death rend such a mighty love asunder,
Or still a passion once so wondrous sweet?

When in a straight, white shroud they shall enfold me,
And close my eyes for that eternal rest,

From out the grave his arms will stretch to hold me,-
To draw me to sweet sleep upon his breast.

Clasped close in his embrace, content

'Til Earth is vanquished, Time is spent.

ALICE HATHAWAY CUNNINGHAM.

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