The Cross Timbers by Edward Everett Dale

traveled was slow, but it seemed to be moving at dizzying speeds and the day coach with red plush seats was to me most luxurious. When we saw our first prairie dogs I was certain that we had reached the real West.
    When we arrived in Vernon at about 4:30 P.M., we were met by Jay with a wagon and team to take us to Navajoe, forty-five miles to the north. We camped on the prairie the first night and reached our destination late the following day. Mattie, Herbert, and Henry all seemed delighted to see us. The Acers-and-Dale store seemed to me very big. Mattie and Herbert and their baby daughter lived in an apartment attached to the north side of the store. Henry boarded with them but slept on a cot in the store in the part partitioned off in one corner for the Post Office, as he was postmaster.
    Alice stayed with Mattie until Father and George came about the latter part of November, but I “bached” with Jay, who hadbuilt a half dugout on his claim half a mile southwest of the Navajoe townsite. We were quite comfortable, for although halfway underground Jay’s little place had a wood floor and a half window on either side. It was furnished with two beds, a couple of chairs, a small cookstove, a table, and a cupboard containing dishes and cooking utensils.
    Jay was building sheds for his horses, fencing a pasture, and otherwise improving his claim. This was done in leisurely fashion and I helped as much as possible. Every evening after supper Jay would slip his forty-five Colt’s revolver inside the waistband of his trousers and go “to get the mail,” though I cannot recall that we ever got any mail. Jay would usually sit on the counter and visit with other men, while I would usually go in and talk with Mattie and Alice or read, for to my delight Mattie had a great deal of wonderful reading matter.
    As the arrival of Father and George created a housing problem, a large dugout room was quickly built joining Jay’s half dugout, and a door was cut connecting the two rooms. Alice then came to keep house for Father, Jay, and George, while I replaced her in Mattie’s home. The new dugout was finished none too soon, for about this time my brother John came in from North Dakota, where he had remained working as a cowhand when Jay left for the job in Mexico.
    Probably I would have preferred staying on the claim in order to spend more time with George, but it was fun to live with Mattie too. She was a subscriber to the Youth’s Companion and had many back numbers, which I read with much pleasure. In addition, she had a number of books which were most interesting. Among them were Surry of Eagle’s Nest and a sequel to it called Mohun, both by John Esten Cooke. They were Civil War stories dealing with the campaigns of Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. I “ate them up” and from them learned a great deal.

    Unfortunately, not all of Mattie’s books and magazines were of the caliber of these two or the Youth’s Companion. Many of them, such as The Trappers of Arkansas and the saccharine effusions of Charlotte M. Braeme and Mary Cecil Hay, were sheer trash, but I read them all. Many were published by the F. M. Lupton Company and sold for a few cents each, including suchtitles as Lord Lisle’s Daughter, Reaping the Whirlwind, A Mad Passion, Thrown on the World, and a host of others. Because one volume, which I found very interesting, lacked the covers and title page it was impossible to know the name of either the author or the book. Many years later I learned that it was Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea.
    When I moved to Mattie’s home Father decided that it was best for me to attend the Navajoe school, which began early in November. The school house, made of boxing planks, was in the northwest part of town. The children sat on long wooden benches, while a wood-burning stove supplied heat. There were about thirty-five pupils ranging in age from six to seventeen years.
    The