GOODBYE

THIS summer (1949) 1 visited High Prairie.

There are the same wonderful views, the same steep hills, some of the same old houses, and I do believe some of the same old wire fences that were there when our family moved away, some forty years ago. I didn't see the old Pitman house. The old Putman house and the old Rothrock house had both burned to the ground. The Bill Brown house was gone, as was also the Methodist Church. The Varker house, the Seifert house, and the Plummer house were fallen into decay.

And what a change in farming! Instead of a family on almost every quarter section of land, the whole area is farmed by a very few men, using up-to-date machinery, and with the most scien methods. Instead of a few acres of struggling wheat fields, there are now acres and acres of green alfalfa.

Nola and I visited the old Tate home, where Wallie and I had lived, and where our children were born. Instead of dipping water with a pail, there are now water pipes everywhere, and the yard was full of flowers. In the kitchen we saw an electric range and refrigerator. In the yard there was an old fashioned yellow rose bush, which had spread into a small wilderness of rose bushes. And the roses were blooming merrily. I feel sure that my Mother planted that rose there.