SETTING THE STAKES.
"We mustn't let any grass grow under our feet, boys," was Mr. Aleck
Howell's energetic remark, next morning, when the little party had
finished their first breakfast in their new home.
"That means work, I s'pose," replied Oscar, turning a longing glance
to his violin hanging on the side of the cabin, with a broken string
crying for repairs.
"Yes, and hard work, too," said his father, noting the lad's look.
"Luckily for us, Brother Aleck," he continued, "our boys are not
afraid of work. They have been brought up to it, and although I am
thinking they don't know much about the sort of work that we shall
have to put in on these beautiful prairies, I guess they will buckle
down to it. Eh?" and the loving father turned his look from the grassy
and rolling plain to his son's face.
Sandy answered for him. "Oh, yes, Uncle Charlie, we all like work!
Afraid of work? Why, Oscar and I are so used to it that we would be
willing to lie right down by the side of it, and sleep as securely as
if it were as harmless as a kitten! Afraid of work? Never you fear
'the Dixon boys who fear no noise'--what's the rest of that song?"
Nobody knew, and, in the laugh that followed, Mr. Howell suggested
that as Younkins was coming over the river to show them the stakes of
their new claims, the boys might better set an extra plate at
dinner-time. It was very good of Younkins to take so much trouble on
their account, and the least they could do was to show him proper
hospitality.
"What is all this about stakes and quarter-sections, anyway, father?"
asked Sandy. "I'm sure I don't know."
"He doesn't know what quarter-sections are!" shouted Charlie. "Oh, my!
what an ignoramus!"
"Well, what is a quarter-section, as you are so knowing?" demanded
Sandy. "I don't believe you know yourself."
"It is a quarter of a section of public land," answered the lad.
"Every man or single woman of mature age--I think that is what the
books say--who doesn't own several hundred acres of land elsewhere (I
don't know just how many) is entitled to enter on and take up a
quarter of a section of unoccupied public land, and have it for a
homestead. That's all," and Charlie looked to his father for
approval.
"Pretty good, Charlie," said his uncle. "How many acres are there in a
quarter-section of land?"
"Yes, how many acres in a quarter of a section?" shouted Sandy, who
saw that his brother hesitated. "Speak up, my little man, and don't be
afraid!"
"I don't know," replied the lad, frankly.
"Good for you!" said his father. "Never be afraid of saying that you
don't know when you do _not_ know. The fear of confessing ignorance is
what has wrecked many a young fellow's chances for finding out things
he should know."
"Well, boys," said Mr. Bryant, addressing himself to the three lads,
"all the land of the United States Government that is open to
settlement is laid off in townships six miles square. These, in turn,
are laid off into sections of six hundred and forty acres each. Now,
then, how much land should there be in a quarter-section?"
"One hundred and sixty acres!" shouted all three boys at once,
breathlessly.
"Correct. The Government allows every man, or single woman of mature
age, widow or unmarried, to go upon a plot of land, not more than one
hundred and sixty acres nor less than forty acres, and to improve it,
and live upon it. If he stays there, or 'maintains a continuous
residence,' as the lawyers say, for a certain length of time, the
Government gives him a title-deed at the end of that time, and he owns
the land."
"What?--free, gratis, and for nothing?" cried Sandy.
"Certainly," said his uncle. "The homestead law was passed by Congress
to encourage the settlement of the lands belonging to the Government.
You see there is an abundance of these lands,--so much, in fact, that
they have not yet been all laid off into townships and sections and
quarter-sections. If a large number of homestead claims are taken up,
then other settlers will be certain to come in and buy the lands that
the Government has to sell; and that will make settlements grow
throughout that locality."
"Why should they buy when they can get land for nothing by entering
and taking possession, just as we are going to do?" interrupted
Oscar.
"Because, my son, many of the men cannot make oath that they have not
taken up Government land somewhere else; and then, again, many men are
going into land speculations, and they don't care to wait five years
to prove up a homestead claim. So they go upon the land, stake out
their claim, and the Government sells it to them outright at the rate
of a dollar and a quarter an acre."
"Cash down?" asked Charlie.
"No, they need not pay cash down unless they choose. The Government
allows them a year to pay up in. But land speculators who make a
business of this sort of thing generally pay up just as soon as they
are allowed to, and then, if they get a good offer to sell out, they
sell and move off somewhere else, and do the same thing over again."
"People have to pay fees, don't they, Uncle Charlie?" said Sandy. "I
know they used to talk about land-office fees, in Dixon. How much does
it cost in fees to enter a piece of Government land?"
"I think it is about twenty-five dollars--twenty-six, to be exact,"
replied Mr. Bryant. "There comes Younkins," he added, looking down the
trail to the river bank below.
The boys had been washing and putting away the breakfast things while
this conversation was going on, and Sandy, balancing in the air a big
tin pan on his fingers, asked: "How much land can we fellows enter,
all told?" The two men laughed.
"Well, Alexander," said his father, ceremoniously, "We two 'fellows,'
that is to say, your Uncle Charlie and myself, can enter one hundred
and sixty acres apiece. Charlie will be able to enter the same
quantity three years from now, when he will be twenty-one; and as for
you and Oscar, if you each add to your present years as many as will
make you twenty-one, you can tell when you will be able to enter and
own the same amount of land; provided it is not all gone by that time.
Good morning, Mr. Younkins." Sandy's pan came down with a crash on the
puncheon floor.
The land around that region of the Republican Fork had been surveyed
into sections of six hundred and forty acres each; but it would be
necessary to secure the services of a local surveyor to find out just
where the boundaries of each quarter-section were. The stakes were set
at the corner of each section, and Younkins thought that by pacing off
the distance between two corners they could get at the point that
would mark the middle of the section; then, by running lines across
from side to side, thus: [Transcriber's note: An image of a square
subdivided into four smaller squares appears here] they could get at
the quarter-sections nearly enough to be able to tell about where
their boundaries were.
"But suppose you should build a house, or plough a field, on some
other man's quarter-section," suggested Charlie, "wouldn't you feel
cheap when the final survey showed that you had all along been
improving your neighbor's property?"
"There isn't any danger of that," answered Younkins, "if you are smart
enough to keep well away from your boundary line when you are
putting in your improvements. Some men are not smart enough,
though. There was a man over on Chapman's Creek who wanted to have
his log-cabin on a pretty rise of ground-like, that was on the upper
end of his claim. He knew that the line ran somewhere about there;
but he took chances-like, and when the line was run, a year after
that, lo, and behold! his house and garden-like were both clean
over into the next man's claim."
"What did he do?" asked Charlie. "Skip out of the place?"
"Sho! No, indeed! His neighbor was a white man-like, and they just
took down the cabin and carried it across the boundary line and set it
up again on the man's own land. He's livin' there yet; but he lost his
garden-like; couldn't move that, you see"; and Younkins laughed one of
his infrequent laughs.
The land open to the settlers on the south side of the Republican Fork
was all before them. Nothing had been taken up within a distance as
far as they could see. Chapman's Creek, just referred to by Younkins,
was eighteen or twenty miles away. From the point at which they stood
and toward Chapman's, the land was surveyed; but to the westward the
surveys ran only just across the creek, which, curving from the north
and west, made a complete circuit around the land and emptied into the
Fork, just below the fording-place. Inside of that circuit, the land,
undulating, and lying with a southern exposure, was destitute of
trees. It was rich, fat land, but there was not a tree on it except
where it crossed the creek, the banks of which were heavily wooded.
Inside of that circuit somewhere, the two men must stake out their
claim. There was nothing but rich, unshaded land, with a meandering
woody creek flowing through the bottom of the two claims, provided
they were laid out side by side. The corner stakes were found, and
the men prepared to pace off the distance between the corners so as to
find the centre.
"It is a pity there is no timber anywhere," said Howell, discontentedly.
"We shall have to go several miles for timber enough to build our
cabins. We don't want to cut down right away what little there is
along the creek."
"Timber?" said Younkins, reflectively. "Timber? Well, if one of you
would put up with a quarter-section of farming land, then the other
can enter some of the timber land up on the North Branch."
Now, the North Branch was two miles and a half from the cabin in which
the Dixon party were camped; and that cabin was two miles from the
beautiful slopes on which the intending settlers were now looking for
an opportunity to lay out their two claims. The two men looked at each
other. Could they divide and settle this far apart for the sake of
getting a timber lot?
It was Sandy who solved the problem. "I'll tell you what to do,
father!" he cried, eagerly: "you take up the timber claim on the North
Branch, and we boys can live there; then you and Uncle Charlie can
keep one of the claims here. We can build two cabins, and you old
folks can live in one, and we in another."
The fathers exchanged glances, and Mr. Howell said, "I don't see how I
could live without Sandy and Charlie."
[Illustration: YOUNKINS ARGUED THAT SETTLERS WERE ENTITLED TO ALL THEY
COULD GET AND HOLD.]
Younkins brightened up at Sandy's suggestion; and he added that the
two men might take up two farming claims, side by side, and let the
boys try and hold the timber claim on the North Branch. Thus far,
there was no rush of emigration to the south side of the Republican
Fork. Most of the settlers went further to the south; or they halted
further east, and fixed their stakes along the line of the Big Blue
and other more accessible regions.
"We'll chance it, won't we, Aleck?" said Mr. Bryant.
Mr. Howell looked vaguely off over the rolling slope on which they
were standing, and said: "We will chance it with the boys on the
timber land, but I am not in favor of taking up two claims here. Let
the timber claim be in my name or yours, and the boys can live on it.
But we can't take up two claims here and the timber besides--three in
all--with only two full-grown men among the whole of us. That stands
to reason."
Younkins was a little puzzled by the strictness with which the two
newcomers were disposed to regard their rights and duties as actual
settlers. He argued that settlers were entitled to all they could get
and hold; and he was in favor of the party's trying to hold three
claims of one hundred and sixty acres each, even if there were only
two men legally entitled to enter homesteads. Wouldn't Charlie be of
age before the time came to take out a patent for the land?
"But he is not of age to enter upon and hold the land now," said his
father, stiffly.
So it was settled that the two men should enter upon the quarter-section
of farming land, and build a cabin as soon as convenient, and that the
claim on the North Fork, which had a fine grove of timber on it,
should be set apart for the boys, and a cabin built there, too. The
cabin in the timber need not be built until late in the autumn; that
claim could be taken up by Mr. Howell, or by Mr. Bryant; by and by they
would draw lots to decide which. Before sundown that night, they had
staked out the corners of the one hundred and sixty acre lot of
farming land, on which the party had arrived in the morning.
It was dark before they returned from looking over the timber land in
the bend of the North Fork of the Republican.