Produced by Barbara Watson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
BY ROBERT J. C. STEAD Author of "PRAIRIE BORN."
PAGE The Prairie 1 The Gramophone 4 The Plow 8 The Mothering 12 Hustlin' in My Jeans 15 The Homesteader 20 Vain Suitors 24 God's Signalman 26 Going Home 32 Just Be Glad 38 The Canadian Rockies 40 A Prairie Heroine 42 The Seer 51 The Son of Marquis Noddle 56 The Prodigals 62 The Squad of One 64 Alkali Hall 70 Prairie Born 76 "A Colonial" 81 Little Tim Trotter 84 The Vortex 86 The Old Guard 91 Kid McCann 93 Who Owns the Land? 99 A Race for Life 103
The City? Oh, yes, the City Is a good enough place for a while, It fawns on the clever and witty, And welcomes the rich with a smile; It lavishes money as water, It boasts of its palace and hall, But the City is only the daughter-- The Prairie is mother of all!
The City is all artificial, Its life is a fashion-made fraud, Its wisdom, though learned and judicial, Is far from the wisdom of God; Its hope is the hope of ambition, Its lust is the lust to acquire, And the larger it grows, its condition Sinks lower in pestilent mire.
The City is cramped and congested, The haunt and the covert of crime; The Prairie is broad, unmolested, It points to the high and sublime; Where only the sky is above you And only the distance in view, With no one to jostle or shove you-- It's there a man learns to be true!
Where the breeze whispers over the willows Or sighs in the dew laden grass, And the rain clouds, like big, stormy billows, Besprinkle the land as they pass; With the smudge-fire alight in the distance, The wild duck alert on the stream, Where life is a psalm of existence And opulence only a dream.
Where wide as the plan of creation The Prairies stretch ever away, And beckon a broad invitation To fly to their bosom, and stay; The prairie fire smell in the gloaming-- The water-wet wind in the spring-- An empire untrod for the roaming-- Ah, this is a life for a king!
When peaceful and pure as a river They lie in the light of the moon, You know that the Infinite Giver Is stringing your spirit a-tune; That life is not told in the telling, That death does not whisper adieu, And deep in your bosom up-welling, You know that the Promise is true!