pe a stampede. They had no fear of
distance, nor storm, nor prairie fire, nor blizzard. Because their
opportunities were few, they squandered them the less. Matched against the
city-bred young folks their talents differed in kind, not in number, nor
in character-value.

Tonight the Aydelots were to give a party in honor of Thaine's birthday,
and the farmhouse was dressed for the occasion. Thaine had been busy all
day carrying furniture in or out, mowing the front lawn where the old
double fireguard once lay, and fixing a seat under the white honeysuckle
trellis, "for the afflicted ones," he declared to pretty Jo Bennington.
Jo's blush was becoming. Thaine felt sure that he must be in love with
her. All the other boys were, too, he knew that well enough.

"What's going on in the dining room?" Asher asked, as he sat at supper
with Virginia in the kitchen.

"The decorating committee is fixing it up for dancing. Bo Peep is coming
with his fiddle and there'll be a sound of revelry by night."

"Who's the decorating committee?" Asher inquired.

"Jo Bennington is helping Thaine, and our new hired girl, Rosie Gimpke,
from over on Little Wolf. She came this morning just after you left,"
Virginia replied. "She acts and looks like she'd never had a kind word
spoken to her."

"Rosie Gimpke must be Hans Wyker's granddaughter. There's a nest of them
over on Little Wolf. They give John Jacobs no end of trouble, but you must
have help," Asher said thoughtfully.

Virginia's mind was not on hired help, however, as the sound of laughter
came from the dining room.

"The bridal wreath and snowballs make it look like a wedding was expected
in there," she declared.

"Will the Arnolds and the Archibalds be up? Have you heard from the
Spoopendykes and the Gilliwigs?" Asher inquired with a smile.

"Oh, Asher! What a change since the days when we invented parties for our
lonely evenings here! What has become of the old prairie?"

"It's out there still, under the wheat fields. We have driven the
wilderness back; plowed a fireguard around the whole valley; tempered the
hot winds by windbreaks and groves."

"It seems impossible that there ever was a one-room sod cabin here, and
only you and I and Jim and faithful old Pilot in all the valley."

"Since so many things have come true it may be that many more will also by
the time Thaine is as old as I was when I came out here and thought the
Lord had forgotten all about this prairie until