"Yes, he brought us sunflowers in an old tin peach-can wrapped with a newspaper, and we had no mahogany dining room set and not so much cut-gla.s.s and china and silver in our cupboard, nor quite such a good rug on our hardwood floor," Asher replied.
"But we had each other and the vision to see all these things coming to us," Virginia said as she looked up into her husband"s face with love-lighted eyes. "I wonder where Jim is."
"Jim is present." Jim Shirley came in quietly from the side porch. "He prepared your wedding supper for you. He buried your first-born, and now he comes to give you a daughter, He"s been first aid to the Aydelots all along the line, as he will hope to continue to be, world without end, and a little more."
The homestead on the Purple Notches looks out on a level land stretching away in an unbroken line to the far westward horizon. Broad fields of wheat grow golden in the summer sunshine, and acres of dark alfalfa perfume the air above them. With a clearer vision of what reward farm life may bring for him who goes forth and earns that reward, the man whom the Tondo road made a soldier, Caloocan a patriot, and Yang-Tsun a Christian, has found in the conquest of the soil a life of usefulness and power.
And the father and mother, Asher and Virginia Aydelot, who, through labor and loneliness and hopes long deferred, won a desert to fruitfulness, a wilderness to beauty--these two, in the zenith of their days, have proved their service not in vain, for that they have also won the second generation back to the kingdom whose scepter is the hoe.
Not in vain did the scout of half a century ago drive back the savage Indian from the plains; not in vain did Funston and his "Fighting Twentieth" wade the Tulijan and swim the Marilao; not in vain did Chaffee"s army burst the gates of Peking, nor Calvin t.i.tus fling out Old Glory above its frowning walls.
Behind the scout came a patient, brave-hearted band of settlers who, against loneliness and distances and drouth and prairie fire and plague and boom, slowly but gloriously won the wilderness. Into the jungles of Luzon will go the saw and spade and spelling book. Upon the Chinese republic has a new light shined.
Not more to him who drives back the frontier than to him who follows after and wins that wilderness with sword re-shaped to a plowshare does the promise to Asher of old stand evermore secure!
"_Thy shoes shall be iron and bra.s.s; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. The eternal G.o.d is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms._"
THE END
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sunflower]
BOOKS BY MARGARET HILL MCCARTER
WINNING THE WILDERNESS
Ill.u.s.trated by J. N. Marchand
The latest book from Mrs. McCarter"s pen is p.r.o.nounced by critics the best work she has ever done. It is a tale of the soil, of winning the land from wilderness to fruitfulness. The author has written into it a great human story, an epic of the prairies. It is aptly called "The Sunflower Book,"
for this flower figures in the glowing romance running through its pages--the golden flower that Kansas chose as its emblem because its face is ever turned toward the light.
A MASTER"S DEGREE
Ill.u.s.trated in color by W. D. Goldbeck
Vivid in its portrayal of fascinating college life, the fine young men and women do more than win victories in athletics and in the cla.s.s-room--they win out in the battle for character. Vigorous in its practical idealism, this is a story to influence and inspire.
A WALL OF MEN
Ill.u.s.trated in color by J. N. Marchand
"With G.o.d Almighty backing us, we"ve got to stand up like a wall of men,"
said one of the Free-soilers, and so they stood, the defenders of liberty and home, on the newly-settled prairie lands--where the tragedy of the Civil War was keenly known. The heroic figure of John Brown appears in the story, and, with all the warring and suffering, young life with its wonderful love moves through the pages of this powerful book.
THE PEACE OF THE SOLOMON VALLEY
Frontispiece by Clara P. Wilson
In a breezy manner the story is told of a New York City man sending his rheumatic son to Kansas for a six months" stay on the ranch of an old Yale chum living in the Solomon Valley. The indignation and expectations of the young man collapse in the face of the facts, and he falls in love with the life of the Kansas farm--and with the farmer"s daughter.
THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE
Ill.u.s.trated in color by J. N. Marchand
In this book Mrs. McCarter made her fame secure. It is a great picture of a thrilling time, and a series of events of historic significance. Its pages are redolent of the sweet air and wide landscapes; the pictures come and go of idyllic childhood, of growing love, of Indian danger, of jealousy, of ma.s.sacre, and of the movement toward the settled life of the plains. It is a poignant and winning record of the price paid for the prairie home.
A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers CHICAGO