Learning to Pray
Opening the Chest
A Card Party
Leaving the Old Homestead





CHAPTER I

The Prairie Pasture


Out on the prairie in one of the western states where buffaloes and
wild horses once had roamed at their pleasure and where cacti and
yuccas still thrived and bloomed could be seen a small two-story frame
building. There was nothing strange in this except that the house was
different from the average house of the plains; for at this particular
time the greater part of the dwellings were made of sod, mud, and brush.

The people, generally speaking, were of that type who think principally
of getting all the enjoyment from their every-day lives that it is
possible to obtain. There was, therefore, little thought among them of
the hereafter, when men must give an account of themselves before a just
and living God. In fact, the younger generation scarcely knew that there
was a God who took note of all their ways.

The building, so different from the ordinary dwellings upon the prairie,