“ One day as I glanced from the window, I saw a body of Indian warriors coming on the trail that led around the lake near us. As they came up, I saw they were in full war paint and feathers. They entered, examined everything, but took nothing. They asked for and ate bread and molasses, as they had seen the children doing when they came in. They all had guns and, big bowie knives sticking in their belts. One particularly villainous looking one took out his knife and felt the edge, looking wickedly at us. ”

“ They grew wonderfully well. We caught fish and shot ducks and geese. On paper our town could not be excelled, with its streets and boulevards, its parks and drives, its churches and schools and public buildings. It was so inspiring to look at, that we each took one hundred and sixty acres adjoining the town, intending them as an addition to plat and sell to the on-rushers when the boom should commence.
We also built a boat here, or rather made a dugout, so we could explore the river. We had amusements in plenty, for wolves, Indians, mosquitoes and grasshoppers were in great abundance. ”

“ Chancing to look out I saw twenty mounted men coming across the prairie. My heart stood still. Where could I hide? At last I decided to run to our nearest neighbor's about a quarter of a mile away, warn her and we could die together. She and her three little children were alone, as it was her husband who had gone for ammunition. I ran, glancing back once, I could see the horsemen were increasing their speed. I reached her house and rushing in said, "Mrs. Fowler, the Indians are coming!" Calmly, she stood up and with a white face said. "Well we can die here as well as anywhere." ”

“ Between the Sioux and Chippewas ran a feud further back than the white man knew of and no opportunity was ever lost to take the scalp of a fallen foe.
The Indians mourn for the dead but doubly so if they have lost their scalps, as scalpless Sioux cannot enter the Happy Hunting Grounds. ”

“ When I was agency physician at Lac qui Parle, I often saw the humorous side of Indian life. One day when the Indians had received their government allowance, a party of them too freely indulged their appetites for liquor; and one, a big brave, who had adopted the patriotic name of George Washington, led a band of Indians to the home of the Catholic sisters, and demanded food. The sisters saw the Indians' condition, barred the door, and told the braves to go away. ”

“ Dunn said "You go over and tell Sergeant Jones what he said." I did. Sergeant Jones said, "What nonsense! They are only going to have their war dance. All of you white people go over and see that dance."
We all went. The soldiers were all there. The Indians had two tom-toms, and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously, jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. ”

“ He had lived with them when he was a fur trader. He used to disguise himself as an Indian and go to the councils, so we all knew just what was going on. Old Buffalo, a chief, said, "If you go to war, I'll be a white man; I won't be an Indian any more. I'll go away and stay by myself always." We knew at once when they fully decided not to join the Sioux.
Finally I yielded to the entreaties of my friends and went down to St. Cloud to stay with friends until the danger should be over. My husband was in the war. One day someone coming from Little Falls said, "There's someone living in your house." ”

“ Then came hardships and troubles to which pioneer life could not be compared. I was obliged to see crops lost for lack of help to harvest them; cattle and horses well nigh worthless as there was no sale for them, neither was there male help sufficient to cultivate the farm, which went back to former wildness. The government was months behind in paying the soldiers, who at best received only a beggarly pittance. One night, alone with my children, I was awakened by a knock on the window and a call, "Hurry! Leave at once. The Indians are upon us, scalping as they come." ”

“ It is very easy for a white man to fall into the habits of the Indian, but almost impossible to raise the [Pg 179] Indian to the standard of the white man. The head chief of the Winnebagoes was well known to me, and we became fast friends. He was a friendly man to all the settlers, but I knew the characteristics of the Indian well enough to trust none of them. He never overcomes the cunning and trickery in his nature and I learned to know that when he seemed most amiable and ingratiating was the time to look out for some deviltry. The Indians were great gamblers, the squaws especially. ”

“ Sometimes we worked a whole day to get one hundred feet through one of the sloughs. We would cut the tallest and coarsest rushes and grass and pile in to make a road bed. We would seem to be in a sea, but finally this trip ended as all trips, no matter how bad, must, and we came to Lake Crystal where we were to stay.
Such a beautiful spot as it was, this home spot! We camped for three weeks, living in our prairie schooner, while the men put up the wild hay.
We built a log cabin with "chinkins" to let in the air. ”

“ The pioneers were brave souls, able to cope with emergencies of many kinds. In them, the adage was verified, "As thy days so shall thy strength be." In 1854 I left Wisconsin, a bride, with my husband, to begin life on a government claim in Minnesota. As we passed through what is now the beautiful city of Faribault, there was only one frame house, which belonged to a half breed from whom the town was named. We settled eight miles beyond in the township of Medford in a small log cabin with bark floors, as there were at that time no saw mills in that locality. ”

“ I went early in the morning with my new friend, Emma J. Tyler, to touch the Liberty pole set up on the hill not far from the mills and near where was afterward built the Winslow Hotel. It was a genuine celebration. In my mind, somehow, like a dream of a birthday in spring, comes a faint picture of a number of pioneer mothers, in my mother's partly furnished parlor. I rushed in after school and stood upon the threshold. I saw bright colors in stripes, and stars of blue that they seemed to be in a quandary how to place and how many to use. Was this the first flag made in St. Anthony? ”

“ Our house soon took on the character of a public building, as my father was made Postmaster, Town Treasurer and Justice of the Peace, and all the town meetings were held there, as well as church and Sunday school. My father gave five acres down at the creek to a company who erected a grist mill and the settlers from fifty or sixty miles away would come to have grain ground and would all stop at our house to board and sleep while there. Then the house would be so full that we boys would have to sleep on the floor, or out in the barn or anywhere else we could find a place. ”

“ I saw some squaws the day after a battle, mourning. They had lost relatives. They sat on the ground and were moaning and rocking their bodies back and forth. The squaws always carried a butcher knife in their belts. They took the point of the knife and cut the skin of their legs from the knees down to the foot, just enough so it would bleed and a few drops trickle down these gashes. There were three or four of these squaws.
In 1854 fifteen hundred Winnebago Indians came up the Minnesota River to Shakopee, in their birch bark and dugout canoes, which lined the shore. ”

“ The deer were everywhere and game of all kinds bountiful. The soldier told me that no white man could settle here anywhere for ten miles as it was all in the Fort Snelling reservation. That is why the town of St. Anthony was built on the east side of the river instead of on the west side and why there was no town on this side of the river for many years after. We saw some Sioux tepees and met the Indians constantly. They were a fine sturdy race, with fine features and smiling faces. The soldier said they could be depended on and never broke a promise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Indians were always very curious, and spent much of the time before our windows watching everything we did. In time we were as calm with those glittering black eyes on us as we would have been if a gentle old cow had been looking in. ”

“ It is no light thing for one to leave his own harvest and go miles to save the crop of another, but it is and has been done times without number by those who are tried and true neighbors and the sentiment which prompts such kindly acts counts for something some time, and it means something in making up the sum total of happiness in this short life of ours.
What did we have to eat that first year? Potatoes and corn. No flour, no meat, some milk. I doubt whether there was a barrel of flour within three miles of our home. No wheat had been raised, no hogs had been fattened ”

“ There was an eight acre patch of wild strawberries where Indians had cultivated the land on our new claim about where our house stands today. They were as large as the small cultivated berries with a most delicious flavor. Everyone that we knew picked and picked but wagon loads rotted on the ground.
A good strong, quick stepping ox could plow two acres a day but much oftener they plowed one and one half acres only. The pigeons flew so low in '54 that we could kill them with any farm implement we happened to be using. ”

“ The bluest day of all was one Sunday. Everyone who could get away was packing up. Women and children were walking the streets and crying. They expected the Sioux to start from Fort Ridgely to kill all the whites, but when they got to Birch Coolie where the Winnebagoes were to join them, the Indians found a barrel of whiskey there. They became intoxicated and had a big fight, so they did not come to Mankato. That was one time when whiskey served a good purpose. ”

“ I used to watch the Indians who were a common sight in those early days in Duluth, especially in the winter, when they would come into town with their dog teams, the sledges laden down with skins which they exchanged for provisions. The dog teams were very interesting with their intelligent well trained Indian dogs. There were usually three or four dogs driven tandem with a simple harness consisting of a collar and a strap around the body of each. The driver always ran or walked by the side of the sledge never sitting on it. ”

“ What the loss of this team was to a pioneer farmer, we can hardly conceive.
The countless number of pigeons which migrated here every spring could never be estimated. At all hours of the night their cry of "Pigie, Pigie, Pigie," could be heard. They could be seen in countless numbers on the "slab trees," that is, old, dead trees. Anyone could kill hundreds in a day and thousands killed, seemingly made no impression. They flew very low and in dense masses. Ducks and geese were exceedingly plentiful. I have never seen wild swan here, but many in Minnesota in the Red River country. ”