ould go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would
act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk.
When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as
soon as they saw the horse. They were handsome birds.

I used to go to my sister's. She had a boarding house on the East Side.
Her boarders were mill workers and "lathers." That is what we used to
call the river drivers. They always had a pike pole in their hand. It
looked like a lath from a distance, so they got the name of "lathers"
from this.

[Illustration: GROUP OF CONTRIBUTORS TAKEN AT A PARTY AT THE HOME OF
MRS. JAMES T. MORRIS, May 26, 1915

Upper row from left to right: Mrs. Robert Anderson, Mrs. James Pratt,
Mrs. John Brown, Mrs. Mary E. Partridge, Mrs. Anna Todd, Mrs. Martha
Gilpatrick, Mrs. Rufus Farnham, Mrs. Charles Godley, Mrs. Paulina
Starkloff.

Second row: Mrs. Elizabeth Clifford, Mrs. Stephen Rochette.

Lower row: Mrs. Mahlon Black. Mrs. Mary Schmidt, Mrs. Margaret Hern,
Mrs. Margaret A. Snyder, Miss Carrie Stratton, Mrs. Mary Weeks, Mrs.
Rebecca Plummer. Eleven of these ladies are over eighty-four years old
and Mrs. Weeks is ninety. All have wonderful memories.]

Mrs. Margaret Hern--1858.

My husband enlisted in the Fall of 1861. It was not a very easy thing
for him to do, for our farm was not yet very productive, our three
children were very young, one a tiny baby, and we had no ready money.
However, he felt that his country called him and when the recruiting
officer told him that all soldier's families would be welcome at the
post and that we could go there with him, he rented our farm to George
Wells and went on to Fort Ridgeley. We lived forty miles from there on
the Crow River, near Hutchinson.

We found that the officer had lied. We were not expected or wanted at
the fort. We finally made arrangements to stay by promising to board the
blacksmith in his quarters. His name was John Resoft. His rations and my
husband's supported us all. Mr. Hern was very handy about the house, as
he was a Maine Yankee and daily helped me with the work.

There was a great sameness about the life as there were only about a
hundred men stationed at the fort. Very few of them had their families
with them. The only women were Mrs. Mueller, wife of the doctor, Mrs.
Sweet, wife of the chaplain and their three children, Mrs. Edson, the
Captain's wife; Sargeant Jones' wife and three children; Mrs. Dunn and