Imagine mother and my sisters jogging hundreds of miles in those springless carts!
Father then went to interview the proprietors of the stage line, and concluded a bargain with them to take us from St. Paul to Georgetown, which place is on the Red River. Accordingly, one morning bright and early, and long before breakfast, we were rolling away up the eastern bank of the Mississippi—father, mother and sisters inside the coach, and myself up with the driver. Our pace was good, the country we were travelling through beautiful in its scenic properties.
We stopped for the first stage at St. Anthony's Falls. Here we had our breakfast.
If anyone that morning had said, "Just across yonder will stand one of the finest cities in America, and that before many years," all the pessimists in the party would have laughed at such a prophecy, but I verily believe, father would have said, "Yes, it is coming."
Our drive that day took us across the Mississippi to the village of St. Cloud, where father, learning that the steamer on the Red River would not come up to Georgetown for some time, concluded to stay over until the next coach, one week later.
In the meantime we made a tent, and hunted prairie chicken, and studied German, or rather Germans, for these made up the greater part of the population.
Taking the next coach the following week, we continued our journey. Soon we left settlement behind, the people of the stage-houses and stopping-places being the only inhabitants along the route.
Many of these were massacred in the Sioux rising which took place shortly afterwards.
Our stages ranged from twelve to twenty miles, and we averaged seventy miles per day.
A great part of the route was beautifully undulating, and fresh scenes were before us all the while.