he bed in the "bridal chamber." My father and brother laid
their straw ticks on the floor outside and I occupied a trundle bed in
Mrs. Nutting's room.

We soon moved out to the Smallidge House, east of town, where our family
consisted of our original seven and four men who boarded with us. There
was but one room, and only a small part of the floor was boarded over
and on this, at night, we spread our cotton ticks, filled with "prairie
feathers" or dried prairie grass, and the men went out of doors while
the women went to bed. In the morning the men rose first and withdrew.
The ticks were then piled in a corner and the furniture was lifted onto
the floor and the house was ready for daytime use. Gradually by standing
in line at the sawmill, each getting a board a day, if the supply held
out, our men got enough boards to cover the entire floor.

The next winter General Shields offered us his office for our home, if
we could stand the cold. He, himself, preferred to winter in the Nutting
Hotel. This winter was a horror to us all. We all froze our feet and the
bedclothes never thawed out all winter, freezing lower each night from
our breath. Before going to bed my brother used to take a run in the
snow in his bare feet and then jump into bed that the reaction might
warm them for a little while. All thermometers froze and burst at the
beginning of the winter so we never knew how cold it was. Someone had
always to hold my baby sister to keep her off the floor so that she
might not freeze. At night my mother hung a carpet across the room to
divide the bedroom from the living room. Dish towels hung to dry on the
oven door would freeze.

That winter my father's nephew shot himself by accident and it was
necessary to amputate his leg. My father had no instruments and there
were no anesthetics nearer than St. Paul, so my cousin was lashed to a
table while my father and Dr. Jewett took off the leg with a fine
carpenter's saw and a razor. He was obliged to stay in bed all winter
for fear the stump would freeze.

Later we lived, for a time, in a log house. The rain penetrated the
chinks, and I remember once when my sister was ill the men had to keep
moving the table around, as the wind shifted, to screen her from the
rain.

There was no butter, eggs, milk or chickens to be had; no canned things
or fresh vegetables. My mother once bought a half bushel of potatoes of
a man who came with a load from Iowa, paying $3.00 a bushel. When