e
going to school. Accordingly our homestead was rented to "that good woman,
the Widow Steavens," and her bachelor brother, and we bought Preacher
White's house, at the north end of Black Hawk. This was the first town
house one passed driving in from the farm, a landmark which told country
people their long ride was over.

We were to move to Black Hawk in March, and as soon as grandfather had
fixed the date he let Jake and Otto know of his intention. Otto said he
would not be likely to find another place that suited him so well; that he
was tired of farming and thought he would go back to what he called the
"wild West." Jake Marpole, lured by Otto's stories of adventure, decided
to go with him. We did our best to dissuade Jake. He was so handicapped by
illiteracy and by his trusting disposition that he would be an easy prey
to sharpers. Grandmother begged him to stay among kindly, Christian
people, where he was known; but there was no reasoning with him. He wanted
to be a prospector. He thought a silver mine was waiting for him in
Colorado.

Jake and Otto served us to the last. They moved us into town, put down the
carpets in our new house, made shelves and cupboards for grandmother's
kitchen, and seemed loath to leave us. But at last they went, without
warning. Those two fellows had been faithful to us through sun and storm,
had given us things that cannot be bought in any market in the world. With
me they had been like older brothers; had restrained their speech and
manners out of care for me, and given me so much good comradeship. Now
they got on the west-bound train one morning, in their Sunday clothes,
with their oilcloth valises--and I never saw them again. Months afterward
we got a card from Otto, saying that Jake had been down with mountain
fever, but now they were both working in the Yankee Girl mine, and were
doing well. I wrote to them at that address, but my letter was returned to
me, "unclaimed." After that we never heard from them.

Black Hawk, the new world in which we had come to live, was a clean,
well-planted little prairie town, with white fences and good green yards
about the dwellings, wide, dusty streets, and shapely little trees growing
along the wooden sidewalks. In the center of the town there were two rows
of new brick "store" buildings, a brick schoolhouse, the courthouse, and
four white churches. Our own house looked down over the town, and from our
upstairs windows we could see the winding