The race for the lands of the new Territories of Kansas and Nebraska wason to the finish. Nebraska was far North. Kansas only interested theSoutherner. The frontiersmen were crossing the boundary lines yearsbefore Congress formally opened them for settlement.
After a brief stop in West Tennessee the Doyles had succeeded inreaching Miami County, just beyond the Missouri border, in 1853. Theyhad settled on a fertile quarter section on the Pottawattomie Creek in asmall group of people of Southern feeling.
The sun of a new world had begun to shine at last for the humble butambitious woman who had borne five strong children to be the athleticsons and daughters of a free country. Her soul rose in a triumphant songthat made her little home the holy of holies of a new religion. Herhusband was the lord of a domain of fertile land. His fields were greenwith wheat. She loved to look over its acres of velvet carpet. In Juneher man and three stalwart boys, now twenty, eighteen and fourteen yearsof age, would swing the reaper into that field and harvest the wavinggold without the aid of a hired laborer. She and her little girls wouldhelp and sing while they toiled.
There was no debt on their books. They had horses, cows, sheep, pigs,chickens, ducks, turkeys. Their crib was bulging with corn. The bins intheir barn were filled with grain.
Their house was still the humble cottage of the prairie pioneer, but hermen had made it snug and warm against the winds and snows of winter.
Their farm had plenty of timber on the Pottawattomie Creek which flowedthrough the center of the tract. They had wood for their fires and logswith which to construct their stable and outhouses.
The house they built four-square with sharp gables patterned after thehome they had lost. There were no dormers in the attic, but two windowspeeped out of the gable beside the stone chimney and gave light and airto the boys\' room in the loft. A shed extension in the rear was largeenough for both kitchen and dining room.
The home stood close beside the creek, and the murmur of its waters mademusic for a busy mother\'s heart.
There was no porch over the front door. But her boys had built a latticework that held a labyrinth of morning glories in the summer. She hadfound the gorgeous wild flowers blooming on the prairies and made ahedge of them for the walks. They were sending their shoots up throughthe soil now to meet the sun of spring. The warm rays had already begunto clothe the prairie world with beauty and fragrance.
The mother never tired of taking her girls on the hill beyond the creekand watching the men at work on the wide sweeping plains that meltedinto the skyline miles beyond. Something in its vast silence, in itsmessage of the infinite, soothed her spirit. All her life in the Eastshe had been fighting against losing odds. These wide breathing plainshad stricken the shackles from her soul.
She was free.
Sometimes she felt like shouting it into the sky. Sometimes she kneltamong the trees and thanked God for His mercy in giving her the newlease of life.
The new lease on life had depth and meaning because she lived andbreathed in her children. Her man had a man\'s chance at last. Her boyshad a chance.
The one thing that gave her joy day and night was the consciousness ofliving among the men and women of her own race. There was not a negroin the county, bond or free, and she fervently prayed that there neverwould be. Now that they were free from the sickening dread of suchcompetition in life, she had no hatred of the race. As a free whitewoman, the mother of free white men............