All You Have To Do Is Get There

Calvin Lee Brown was a lanky, raw-boned youth on the edge of manhood. Never having given much thought to his future, he was suddenly obliged to consider his direction in life when his family was uprooted from their home in Missouri. Having lost everything they owned in the wake of the Civil War, they had fled west to Kansas. In their exodus however, the Brown family had sought not only refuge, but also promise. For the frontier, as the handbills all proclaimed, was a land of manifest destiny, a land of opportunity, a land where railroads were being built, boom towns were springing up, and gold was still being discovered. It was a land of wide open spaces where people could get a fresh start and homesteads were being offered practically for free. It was a land just waiting to be taken. All you had to do was get there.