JUST GOOD NEIGHBORS pgs 89-90

With all these cares in building houses and in getting food and clothing the early settler found time to be friendly and hospitable. The coming together of all the men to help raise the new cabin was the first sign of this neighborly feeling. If the new family needed food, it was found among the neighbors and sent to the needy ones. Seed for the first crop, perhaps, might be provided. If a family had fresh meat there would always be some for the neighbors. No one seemed to be selfish. Besides they visited back and forth by whole families even when there were great flocks of children to crowd into a small cabin. Of course, fathers and mothers were seated at the table first, because there was not room for all. Children waited without feeling unhappy.

Since neighbors were very far apart it took all day to make a visit. No doubt the boys and girls of the family looked far ahead to the day when a visit would be made; for not very many things happened to change the regular work of the home. There were no circuses, no baseball nor football games in the new Territory across the Mississippi. No one had ever thought of “movies” and the real fun of living and running free was the best thing about the great prairie. To mount a horse and go miles after the cows, and to race a neighbor boy on the way was fun enough.