as
uneven. As Jonas once remarked when he stepped amiss on his high
boot-heel and spilled all the batter into a buffalo wallow, "This is
certainly a corrugated country." He was not always and necessarily a
profane man, whatever one might think who heard him driving oxen. In
times of real trouble he expressed himself coolly and then stuck to the
facts.

For a long time Jonas thought little of the small patch of prairie
which belonged to him; he only began to take it seriously when he sold
twenty acres--a deal which was consummated through the agency of
Stephen Brown, senior, who paid the taxes in his absence and thus knew,
generally, where Jonas was. Coming back a year or two later he was
surprised to see how that place had built up; and when, after repeated
visits, he had made himself known to all the neighbors and discovered
what nice people they were,--it was a new sensation for Jonas to have
neighbors,--he got it more and more into his head that they were _his_
neighbors, and that he belonged there. He decided to settle down in
those parts. Things in general seemed to be shifting into a new mode
of life and impelling him to go along. In the early eighties, central
Texas was becoming tightly fenced; the barb wire was spreading out
generally; railroads were hauling herds where formerly they went afoot;
shorthorn bulls were changing the face of nature; it was plain to be
seen that before a great while the long drives would be a thing of the
past. While there was still use for the cowboy, there was less call
for Jonas's peculiar abilities.

Having land which seemed to call for a house, he built one on it; but
at first he did not occupy it himself. During his absences it was
occupied by "white" families of the sort that move often by wagon and
work cotton on shares; meantime his fancy was playing about the place
and taking root. Coming back in the fall the house was vacant. As
Jonas was himself an excellent wife and a kind husband, he moved in.
Having in mind to stop a while, he of course stopped at his own house.

The problem of living on one spot solved itself in the most natural
manner. Instead of driving cattle in the old way, he conquered a few
and drove them from the seat of a plow. Thus while everything was
going forward, he mounted the wheel of Progress and put his hand to the
throttle; and now every time he got back from one of his occasional
absences a new farm had been opened up forever and ever