my age but I used to serve. One day a big Indian came in when I was
alone and asked for buckshot. They were large and it did not take many
to weigh a pound. He picked a couple out and pretended to be examining
them. I weighed the pound and when I saw he did not put them back, I
took out two. You never saw an Indian laugh so hard in your life. You
always had to be careful when weighing things for Indians, for if you
got over the quantity and took some out they were always grouchy as they
thought you were cheating them.

The farmers used to come through our town on their way to Hastings with
their grain on their ox drawn wagons. They had a journey of two hundred
miles from Owatonna to Hastings and back. They would go in companies and
camp out on the way.

During the years of '56 and '57 many people could not write home as they
had no money to pay postage. Our business was all in trade.

In 1854 a man whom we all knew who lived up above Mankato took an Indian
canoe and paddled down the river to St. Paul. There he sold it for
enough money to pay his fare back on the boat. He was a man of
considerable conscience in his dealings with white men but when a man
was only "an injun" it had not caught up with him yet. Now for the
sequel: The man who bought it had it under the eaves of his house to
catch rain water. During a storm his window was darkened. He looked up
to see an Indian with his blanket held high to darken the window so he
could see in. The white man went out. The savage said, "My canoe. Want
him." The man would not give it up, but the Indian and his friends went
to the authorities and he had to. They had traced it all that long way.

We bought an elevated oven cook stove in St. Paul and it was in use
every day for fifty years. We brought Baker knock down chairs with us
and they have been in constant use for fifty-eight years--have never
been repaired and look as if they were good for one hundred years more.

We made coffee from potato chips, sliced very thin and browned in the
oven. Not such bad coffee, either.

Mrs. T. B. Walker--Minneapolis.

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.

O