There was no time to build jails. Alone
on the prairie--a separate prairie for every criminal--that would take a
lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn't provide the proper
degree of punishment, however. But that is being too particular. Alone on
the prairie for punishment--well, I should like to see it tried."
He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, and
a tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turn more
intently towards a land that is far off, where the miserable
miscalculations and mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he was
only conscious of a primitive imagination looking out of a young girl's
face, and making a bridge between her understanding and his own.
"What else would you do if you were a judge?" he asked presently.
"I would make my father be a miller," she replied. "But he is a miller, I
hear."
"But he is so many other things--so many. If he was only a miller we
should have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up early
enough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, I see
him; but that is not enough--is it, mother?" she added with a sudden
sense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps.
The woman's face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed in
her eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself.
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