I remember going to market in the morning and seeing a wagon with all the requisites for a home, drive up to a vacant lot. On the wagon were lumber, furniture and a wife and baby. What more could be needed! When I passed in the afternoon the rough house was up, the stove pipe through the window sent out a cheery smoke and the woman sang about her household tasks.
One morning I was at church in St. Anthony. The minister had just given out the text when the squeaking of the Red River carts was faintly heard. He hastily said, "To be discoursed on next Sunday," for nothing but this noise could be heard when they were passing.
Mrs. Virginia Jones—1856.
I lived in St. Peter in 1856. The Sioux Indians were having a scalp dance at Traverse. Their yelling could be plainly heard in St. Peter. All of that town went over to see them dance. They had a pole decorated with several scalps. These were stretched on hoops and painted red inside. The Indians danced round and round this pole, jumping stiff legged, screeching and gesticulating, while the tom-toms were pounded by the squaws. I was frightened and wanted to leave, but could not as I had been pushed near the front and the crowd was dense. Seeing my fear the Indians seized me by the hands and drew me into their circle, making me dance round and round the pole.
Some days later I started east to spend the summer with my mother. Distances were long in those days as the trip was made by steamboat and stage coach. I took one of the steamers which then ran regularly on the Minnesota river, sorrowfully parting from my husband as I did not expect to see him again until fall. That anguish was all wasted for we stuck on a sand bank just below town and my husband came over in a boat and lived on the steamer for nearly a week before we could get off the sandbar.
Mrs. Georgiana M. Way—1856.
We moved to Minnesota from Iowa. Came with a prairie schooner. The country was very wild. We settled on a farm five miles south of Blue Earth. We brought along a cow and a coop of chickens. The roads were awfully rough. We would milk the cow, put the milk in a can and the jarring that milk got as those oxen drew that wagon over the rough roads gave us good butter the next day. Our first shack was not a dugout, but the next thing to it. It was a log shed with sloping roof one way. We had two windows of glass so did not feel so much like pioneers.
The rattlesnakes were very thick. We used to watch them drink from the trough. They would lap the water with their tongues just as a dog does. Many a one I have cut in two with the ax. They always ran but I was slim in those days and could catch them.
We used prairie tea and it was good too. It grew on a little bush. For coffee we browned beets and corn meal. Corn meal coffee was fine. I'd like a cup this minute.
Once a family near us by the name of Bonetrigger lived for four days on cottonwood buds or wood browse as it was called.