CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH BIM KELSO MAKES HISTORY, WHILE ABE AND HARRY AND OTHER GOOD CITIZENS OF NEW SALEM ARE MAKING AN EFFORT TO THAT END IN THE INDIAN WAR.
Many things came with the full tide of the springtime--innumerable flowers and voices, the flowers filled with glowing color, the voices with music and delight.

Waves of song swept over the limitless meadows.
They went on and on as if they traveled a shoreless sea in a steady wind.
Bob-whites, meadow-larks, bobolinks, song sparrows, bluebirds, competed with the crowing of the meadow cocks.

This joyous tumult around the Traylor cabin sped the day and emphasized the silence of the night.
In the midst of this springtime carnival there came also cheering news from the old home in Vermont--a letter to Sarah from her brother, which contained the welcome promise that he was coming to visit them and expected to be in Beardstown about the fourth of May.

Samson drove across country to meet the steamer.

He was at the landing when _The Star of the North_ arrived.