re our new home was to be.
My father carried $2,000 in gold in inside pockets of a knitted jacket
which my mother had made him. With this money we paid for two quarter
sections of improved land and the whole family began to farm. We lived
just as we had in Sweden, as we were in a Swedish settlement. We were
Lutheran, so there were no parties. Going to church was our only
amusement.

The prairies were perfectly lovely with their wild flower setting. There
had been a fire two years before and great thickets of blackberry vines
had grown up. I never saw such blackberries. They were as large as the
first joint of a man's thumb. The flavor was wild and spicy. I never ate
anything so good. Cranberries by the hundreds of bushels grew in the
swamps. We could not begin to pick all the hazel nuts. We used to eat
turnips as we would an apple. They were so sweet, they were as good. We
made sun-dials on a clear spot of ground and could tell time perfectly
from them.

We children made dolls out of grass and flowers. I have never seen
prettier ones. We kept sheep and mother spun and wove blankets and
sheets. We had bolts and bolts of cloth that we made and brought with us
from Sweden. Here, we raised flax and prepared it for spinning, making
our own towels.

Nothing could be cozier than our cabin Christmas eve. We had brought
solid silver knives, forks and spoons. These hung from racks. Quantities
of copper and brass utensils burnished until they were like mirrors hung
in rows. In Sweden mother had woven curtains and bed coverings of red,
white and blue linen and these were always used on holidays. How glad we
were they were the national colors here! We covered a hoop with gay
colored paper and set little wooden candle holders that my father had
made all around it. This was suspended from the ceiling, all aglow with
dips. Then, as a last touch to the decorations, we filled our brass
candle sticks with real candles and set them in the windows as a
greeting to those living across the lake. A sheaf for the birds and all
was done.

The vegetables grew tremendous. We used to take turns in shelling corn
and grinding it, for bread, in a coffee mill. Mother would say, "If you
are hungry and want something to eat of course you will grind." We made
maple sugar and fine granulated sugar from that.

My sisters used to walk from Watertown to Minneapolis in one day,
thirty-seven miles, following an Indian trail and then were ready for a
good