ht have been the fate of her
husband, but bravely and quietly going with us. Every farmer drove his
herd of cattle and horses. It was all they could move.

One of our neighbors, Mrs. George Fowler, sister of the late Mrs. J. J.
Hillmer, was confined to her bed with a babe two weeks old. She had to
be carried on a bed in their wagon. Mr. Fowler's father, mother and
sister from New Haven, Conn., were spending the summer in the west with
their son. We started for Winnebago City, our nearest town east. We
traveled all night to make that twenty miles, making slow progress with
our heavy wagons, poor roads and herds. That country was full of sloughs
at that time. Often during the night, the wagon would become stuck, and
the men would unhitch the horses, we would walk out on the tongue of the
wagon to more solid ground, then they would hitch chains to the end of
the tongue and pull it out. We reached Winnebago in the morning and
found the people had fled in fright like ourselves. There were only a
few men left to guard the post office and store. We could not find
safety there. We felt more fright. Thinking we were left behind to
danger, we continued our course east all that day. From all cross roads
wherever the eye turned we could see wagon loads of people and herds of
stock coming. Ask anyone where they were going, the answer would be,
"Don't know. Going where the crowd goes." On our second day out Mr.
Mills found us and his wife and children. I often wonder how he did in
that crowd.

At night the women and children slept in the wagons while the men lay
under the wagons and kept guard. Every settlement we came to was
deserted, every farm house empty, desolation everywhere. We traveled on
until the afternoon of Aug. 25th when we reached the town of Albert Lea.
Much to our joy we found this not deserted. There were five hundred of
that frightened crowd camped near Albert Lea that night. We camped near
a farm house on the outskirts of the town. We found there some fine
people who kindly took Mrs. Mills and children into the house. Five days
after our arrival at this farm house, Mrs. Mills gave birth to a fine
boy. We stayed here several days when the news came that it was thought
the trouble was over and it would be safe to return. Only, three
families returned to our settlement, the others going to relatives
farther east.

On the second night after reaching home we were awakened toward morning
by our neighbor saying, "There