By the Shores of Silver Lake

They went into the stable and bit the horses until they pulled at their halters and stamped

“Well,” Mary said contentedly. “Now we can save the next part for tomorrow. Every day we can read one part, and that will make the stories last longer.”

She was so beautiful and so happy, blue and white and gold and alive and laughing, that they could not look at her long enough

“My belief is they came back to visit the old place where they lived before the graders came in and the antelope left. Maybe they used to live here before the hunters killed the last buffalo. Buffalo wolves were all over this country once, but there’s not many left now, even around here. The railroads and settlements kept driving them farther west. One thing’s certain if I know anything about wild animal tracks; those two wolves came straight from the west and went straight back west, and all they did here was to stop one night at the old den. And I wouldn’t wonder if they’re pretty nearly the last buffalo wolves that’ll ever be seen in this part of the country.”

I’ll hunt them tomorrow.”

He was going to Iowa to be married

but he shot nothing else except hawks. Sometimes he shot a hawk because hawks kill other birds

One day Pa came from hunting, bringing a great, snow-white bird

Laura could see that a level road would save work for horses, but a locomotive was an iron horse that never got tired

When a man and his team came to the plowed land, another man took hold of the scraper handles and held them just high enough to thrust the round shovel point into the loose earth of the plowed ground while the team went on and earth filled the scraper. Then he let go of the handles, the full scraper sat level on the ground, and the horses pulled it on around the circle, up the side of the grade