The Land Claim — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

18 THE LAND-CLAIM. sung, and Jaughed, and shouted as they walked, with axes slung over their shoulders that never felt the weight, life seemed a festival, bare existence a rich delight. There was another young creature abroad that morning who felt “glad that she was alive.’ Having prepared her father’s early morning meal, as the night before directed, and put the simple furniture of the cabin in order, Alicia had come out with her basket to gather strawberries, thousands of baskets of which were lying in luscious ripeness among the hazel-bushes that skirted the prairie. Nothing could have been more entirely appropriate as a crowning beauty to the May-morning landscape, than this young English beauty. The simple, flowing dress, the pretty straw hat, the scarlet shawl crossed over the girlish bosom and tied behind, to be out of the way of the bushes—these first caught the eyes and fixed the admiring gaze of the young men on their way to dispute boundaries with her father. Alicia Newcome was not personally known to either of them, though the fame of her beauty, which was spread abroad among the settlers, had already reached theirears. A nearer view of the face, half hidden in soft flaxen curls and shadowed by the wide straw hat, left no doubt who was the charming strawberry-girl they found it necessary to pass, though with never so much reluctance. With a courteous salute, the young men walked past, each wishing in his heart he had some good excuse for speaking to the lovely child-woman—for so she looked—yet not yenturing to abash the gentle modesty that breathed from her very figure; and had gone on but a few paces, when a try of alarm suddenly arrested their steps, and caused both to hasten back to the spot where Alicia was standing, spell-bound with terror. Two immense serpents, coiled together into a “mound of frightful dimensions and appearance, explained the occasion of her alarm. “They are quite harmless, Miss—Miss Newcome, I presume?” began Fred Allen. Alicla drew a long breath. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sirs, for interrupting your walk, but I am so timid about snakes, and don’t know a harmless one from one that is venomous.” Commicloooks.corn