had blowed down, with the trunk right acrost his legs above the knees, and smashed them almost off.  ’Twas plain it hadn’t killed him to once, for the ground all about his head was tore up as though he’d fought with it, and Russell said his teeth and hands was full of grass and grit where he’d bit and tore, a-dyin’ so hard.  I declare, I shan’t never forget that sight!  Seems as if my body was full of little ice-spickles every time I think on’t.

Well, Russell couldn’t do nothin’; we had no chance to lift the tree, so we went back to the house, and he rode away after neighbors; and while he was gone, I had a long spell of thinkin’.  Mother said she hoped I wouldn’t have no hard lesson to teach me Major’s ways; but I had got it, and I know I needed it, ’cause it did come so hard.  I b’lieve I was a better woman after that.  I got to think more of other folks’s comfort than I did afore, and whenever I got goin’ to be dismal ag’in I used to try ‘n’ find somebody to help; it was a sure cure.

When the neighbors come, Russell and they blasted and chopped the tree off of Simon, and buried him under a big pine that we calculated not to fell.  Lu pined, and howled, and moaned for his master, till I got him to look after baby now and then, when I was hangin’ out clothes or makin’ garden, and he got to like her in the end on’t near as well as Simon.

After a while there come more settlers out our way, and we got a church to go to; and the minister, Mr. Jones, he come to know if I was a member, and when I said I wa’n’t, he put in to know if I wasn’t a pious woman.

“Well,” says I, “I don’t know, Sir.”  So I up and told him all about it, and how I had had a hard lesson; and he smiled once or twice, and says he,—­

“Your husband thinks you are a Christian, Sister Potter, don’t he?”

“Yes, I do,” says Russell, a-comin’ in behind me to the door,—­for he’d just stepped out to get the minister a basket of plums.  “I ha’n’t a doubt on’t, Mr. Jones.”

The minister looked at him, and I see he was kinder pleased.

“Well,” says he, “I don’t think there’s much doubt of a woman’s bein’ pious when she’s pious to home; and I don’t want no better testimony’n yours, Mr. Potter.  I shall admit you to full fellowship, sister, when we have a church-meetin’ next; for it’s my belief you experienced religion under that blowed-down barn.”

And I guess I did.

LE MARAIS DU CYGNE.[1]

[1:  The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men in Southern Kansas took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs.]

  A blush as of roses
    Where rose never grew! 
  Great drops on the bunch-grass,
    But not of the dew! 
  A taint in the sweet air
    For wild bees to shun! 
  A stain that shall never
    Bleach out in the sun!

  Back, steed of the prairies! 
    Sweet song-bird, fly back! 
  Wheel hither, bald vulture! 
    Gray wolf, call thy pack! 
  The foul human vultures
    Have feasted and fled;
  The wolves of the Border
    Have crept from the dead.