or a short time, was a fruitful one
in many ways.

To the public, however, not so romantically inclined, the homesteaders
were the peasantry of America. Through the early homesteading days folk
who "picked up and set themselves down to grub on a piece of land" were
not of the world or important to it. But the stream of immigration to
the land was widening, flowing steadily on.

How did one go about homesteading? we asked. Well, all you had to do to
get a deed to a quarter-section--160 acres of land--was to file on it at
the nearest Land Office, live on it eight months, pay the government
$1.25 an acre--and the land was yours. Easy as falling off a log!

The only improvement required by the government was some sort of abode
as proof that one had made the land his bona-fide residence for the full
eight months.

What would that cost? And the whole undertaking? It depended partly on
what kind of shack one built and whether he did it himself or hired it
done. A shack cost all the way from $25 to $100 or more. Some of those
who had families and intended to stay, built cheap two-and three-room
houses.

Of course, it cost women who had to hire things done more to homestead.
But with grub, fuel and other necessities we figured it would cost not
more than $500 all told.

Then we learned of this quarter-section with a shack already built, bunk
and all. It had been filed on and the owner had left before proving-up
time so that the claim, shack and all, had reverted to the government.
We had about $300 saved up, and this was enough, we decided, to cover
homesteading expenses, inasmuch as the shack was provided. So we had all
but the final payment of $200 to the government, which would be due when
we had "made proof."

We decided to let the money for that final payment take care of itself.
The thing to do was to get hold of a piece of land before it was all
gone. To hear people talk, it was the last day of grace to apply for a
claim. They talked like that for ten years. We did not know there were
several million acres lying out there between the Missouri and the
Pacific waiting to be settled. We would have all winter to figure out
how to prove up. And we found that one could get $1000 to $1500 for a
raw claim after getting a deed to it.

The claim with the shack on it was in South Dakota, thirty miles from a
town called Pierre. We looked that up in the geography to make sure it
really existed. But when we tried to get detai