cattle again.
Perhaps, as Luther had said, they would have to sell out also. The dream
of going East absorbed her once more. As she dreamed, however, a shrewd
eye was kept on the cattle. As nearly as possible she lived up to the
trust reposed in her. Quick to serve, sensitive, honest, dependable as she
was, these cattle constituted the point of contact between the developing
girl and her developing philosophy of life. Duty pointed sternly to the
undesired task, and duty was writ large on the pages of Lizzie Farnshaw's
monotonous life. Her hands and face had browned thickly at its bidding,
but though, as she had remarked a couple of hours before, she should crack
like the sunbaked earth beneath her feet, she would not fail in her
obligation to keep the cattle out of other men's fields, and her father
out of the primitive courts where damages could be assessed. Poverty she
had always known, but now they were threatened with a new and more
dreadful form of it than any hitherto encountered, a fact of which courts
took no cognizance. Hope and fear alternated in her heart as she rode
along, but for the most part the young life in her clung to the idea of
the Eastern trip. Hope springs eternal in the child heart. Perhaps after
all they would have to leave Kansas, as Luther had said. If only----. In
spite of the arguments of good sense she clung to the idea. She was glad
Luther was there. In her simple way she had told her plans, her hopes, and
her fears to Luther's willing ears ever since she had known him: she did
so now. A Maggie Tulliver in her own family, Luther was the one
compensating feature of her life. Luther not only understood but was
interested. His tallow-candle face and faded hair were those of the--in
that country--much despised Swede, but the child saw the gentle spirit
shining out of his kindly blue eyes. Luther was her oracle, and she quoted
his words so often at home that it was a family joke.

Luther Hansen was the only preacher to whom Lizzie Farnshaw ever listened.
Her Sundays had been spent on the prairies from choice. Mrs. Farnshaw
mourned over what she considered her daughter's unregenerate condition,
but Mr. Farnshaw was quite willing that the child should herd the cattle
if she preferred it to spending an hour at "meetin'." Luther, who also
until this year had herded his father's cattle and who usually spent the
long days with the girl, had quaint ways of looking at religious questions
which was a ne