I talked to no one--I merely followed the stakes--until one morning I pulled into a strange cluster of houses out on the green prairie, the beginning of a village.

I drew up in front of its blacksmith shop and asked the name of the place.

The smith lifted his face from the sole of the horse he was shoeing and replied, "Monterey Centre." I looked around at my own county, stretching away in green waves on all sides of the brand-new village; which was so small that it did not interfere with the view.

I had reached my own county! I had been a part of it on this whole wonderful journey, getting acquainted with its people, picking up the threads of its future, now its history.
Prior to this time I had been courting the country; now I was to be united with it in that holy wedlock which binds the farmer to the soil he tills.

Out of this black loam was to come my own flesh and blood, and the bodies, and I believe, in some measure, the souls of my children.
Some dim conception of this made me draw in a deep, deep breath of the fresh prairie air..