The morning call., 1894-12-31
A SOD HOUSE.
The Home on a New Farm
in Western Nebraska.
Life Is Not as Pleasant as 1t Might
Be, Especially for the
Housewife.

On new farm in Western Nebraska th g
house is a verysinconspicuous object. The
eye wanders over immense grain fields.
perhaps large timber claim of young box
elders and cottonwoods, garden, roomy
stock-yard, and the sod roofs of many
sheds for poultry, stock aud machinery {;
but except fer a wreath of smoke or the
chance reflection of a window-pane. the
dwelling would be verlooked.
1t is often of the half-dugOut half-sOd
house order of arcbite cture, the back part
followed out of the side Of a low hill, and
the front of the squares OF sod. mer ely
placed together. and all upheld by slight
frame Of wood. with a door and one or two
window castings, and perhaps fe W rafters
overhead. 1t is very small and low and
serves the single purpose OF shelter. There
is possibility even of its failure in this.
and the trapdoor aslant at one side Of the
house proclaims the cyclone caVe-ordi-
narily the receptacle for milk and butter.
The woman attends to her necessary
household duties, throws gunDysack
over her bronco's back, Jumps astride,
rounds up the cattle and drives them down
the canyons to Craze on the steep sides, or
iD low strip beside creek. Canyons are
not sociaDle places; one can scarcely have
a concep ion Of the primeval unless he has
walked through a canyon. He thinks of
tiDct mammoths. and wonders if centaurs
have not merely retired into the inner cav
ems. What the sod-hOuSe woman thinks
about all day long in solitude like that it is
hard to tell-the mortgage on the farm,
diseases among the stock, the prospects of
he crops, the time when they can put up
their frame dwellings, the hard. unadorned
facts in the tresdmill OF her life; she
makes new plans for the work, WORK, work,
which is her sole law of existence. Per-
haps she has memories of another time,
other surroundings, but they must seem
vague and far away. Even the weather is
monotonous; there is practically always
the cloudiess sky, the brilliant sun, The
strong. dry wind. that curls The leaves of
the young corn and turns the buffalo grass
brown.
Life in one Of these prairie dwellings Is
certainly getting close to nature and the
primitive; closer, perhaps, than the Arab
tribes of the desert, who, on the whole,
observe more laws, religious and secular,
and have less solitude and social deprlya-
ton. To realize this, one has only to
fancy a man and wife in sod house fif-
teen miles from the nearest village, in one
of the sparsely settled districts of Western
Nebraska. For days, and in some seasons
Tor weeks, they see no human beings out
side of their own household. Even beg
giug Indians and tramps are almost IN
known in this country. Prairie dogs cast
up their mounds and found towns in the
unm olested spots about the place; gophers
and field mice burrow through the sod
walls OF the house; not infrequently
snakes swing themselves down from the
rafters inside, or crawl in at The door 10
get at any milk PANS standing about. At
night coyotes and some OF the gray wolves
come ND through the canyon and skuIk
about the poultry-yard or howl close to
the windows. Through the day, while the
man is in the fields. The herding usually
falls to the woman's lot. Probably each
takes noon luncheon in paper, to save
coming back TO the house until night.
Women, and men, too, become withered
and prematurely old. Hair and skin take
on the general tint of things about them.
Their teeth drOpsOut without thought of
replacing them. And there comes a GER
tain feverish look in their eyes-a look OF
intensified expectal lion, a straining into
the future. They lose all thought OF
appearance; it gets to mean vanity rather
than self-respect to them. Such life
must have its inevitable mental ana moral
effect. All the sensitive, the aesthetic.
sometimes the moral sense itself, becomes
athropled. The tragedies os city are uD-
earthed and brought TO light, but the
silent tragedies of these desolate lives are
swallowed up and lost in the remoteness
and immensely of the prairie wastes.
1t is motley assor tment of humanity
that takes the claims and homesteads 90
the opening up of country like this. Elk
cowboys. who have come to admit he
claims of a single wife and family, con-
frmed pioneers who move with the ad-
vance OF railroads, people of refinement
and reverses of fortune, many Russian aud
German lmml rants, and a shrinking OF
all the other nations of the earth. After
the first rush a sitting process sets 10
which soon separates them into three
-
thing and make the pros perity of the coun-
try, the non-progressive. who never get
beyond the original sod house, and the
shifting traDsients who move at sign of
trouble and come back in time of pros
perity.
There is. however, no sitting social pro-
cess during these first years. The sod
house Levels all ranks. and at the rare
intervals when any of the people are
brought together socially it is on terms of
perfect equality; they sim ply take one an
other for granted, with no question of ante
cedents, family history sor social advan-
tages. They are people who are starting
life anew and living on hopes of the future.
with forgetfulness of the past and endur-
ance of the present.
A woman's lot is the harder; she misses
more things in such life than man does.
Ii she is strong enough. mentally and ply
sically. to endure until they come into
better things, she lives out her allotted
time unpraised and unrewarded of this
world. If she has mental bias toward
the morbid or melancholy she is in danger
of adding one to the list of women in the
hospital for the insane al Lincoln.
The real pioneers, who survive every.
thing, In the end have comfortable homes
and have created some advantages for their
children. They have lived In the sod house
| until the year OF good crop and few
hnn9Hh0f6 IN ha mr.
have had the small, bare. frame cottage
built. The next season, if good fortune
continues, porch and an IL" are added
and In few years it is enlarged and com.
fortably fitted up. Often the sod house il
lef standing near the new one for some
purpose, or sometlmes as matter eff sen.
timent.-Chicago Times.