The sun rises over a sea of grass that stretches in endless waves across the plains. The light wakes the children and they crawl out from under their comfortable quilts and dress quickly. It is time to do the chores.

At first the children yawn and blink sleepily. Outside their sod home, however, their energy is restored by the fresh air, and they shiver in the early morning chill. Fall comes early in this climate, and soon the grass will be covered with snow.

The girl grabs a milk pail and a three-legged stool. Her designated chore is to milk the cow that waits in the small barn. Like the house, the barn is made of chunks of sod cut from the grassland.

             The girl’s younger brother tosses handfuls of corn to the chickens and then feeds the mule. The hungry animals crowd around him trustingly.        

Both children work quickly because today is a school day, and they don’t want to be late. They will be sorry when snow blocks the road to the schoolhouse. Then they will have to stay home.

This will be the family’s second winter on the plains. Two summers ago they crossed the country in a wagon train as part of the great exodus from the East. Hundreds of families migrated to the West to find good farming land.

When they got to their land, it seemed to the children a useless and desolate place—not a single tree grew anywhere. Their father had dug a hole into the side of a hill, the way a burrowing animal does. He had walled up the open side, and that’s where they had spent the first winter. Their home back East had been in a town. The children didn’t know if they’d like homesteading in a community where friends and farms were miles apart.

Finally spring came, and the family set to work to construct a proper house. In other parts of the frontier, people lived in adobe houses or log cabins. On the plains, there was no clay for making adobe bricks, and there were no trees to provide logs for a cabin. The new home would be a “soddy”,  built of bricks cut from the sod.

            As soon as the sod home was finished, the family turned to planting crops. The parents plowed the land, and the children planted seeds and hauled water.

In the fall the whole family harvested the crops. They put some foods aside for winter and sold the rest in town. They earned enough money to pay the first installment on the loan they had taken for the land.