move,
was spent industriously applying their knitting needles, meanwhile
singing to themselves to the accompaniment of the thud, thud of the
oxen.

Each day was opened with the family prayer, after which we had the
morning meal and then the boys took turns starting on ahead with the
pigs, this extra time being needed because of the pigs' obstinacy. One
morning the boys found they had started back in the same direction from
which they had come and had traveled six miles before they found it out.
We purchased a barrel of crackers in Milwaukee and our noonday meal
consisted of crackers and milk, and as milk soured, we fed it to the
hogs. Butter was made on the way, and bread and biscuits were baked in a
kettle.

When we staked out our claim, we laid a floor and placed a tent over it
where we lived till logs could be procured. These we got on the west
side of the river, then government land. For shingles we drove to Trim
Mill ten or twelve miles the other side of Prescott, Wis. At one time
that summer two hundred Indians were camped near our farm for two days
on their way to St. Paul.

Mrs. Pauline Hagen.

I was four years old when my parents settled in Hastings. Mother was
obliged to return to Wisconsin to see about our goods which were delayed
in coming, and father wintered here and took care of us three small
children. Our house had no floor and very little furniture, and this
hand-made, save for a small sheet iron stove through the cracks of which
the fire could be plainly seen.

At bed time father placed us in sacks, firmly tied around our little
bodies, and put us on straw beds on the ground and then covered us with
straw for warmth. We had no other covering. Our food that first winter
consisted mostly of corn meal, made up, in a variety of ways. But mother
on her arrival in the spring with our lost household goods, found her
family fat and rugged and none the worse for the severe winter of
'55-'56.

Mrs. Catherine Meade.

We were at Fort Ridgely at the time of the outbreak. At the fort were
gathered all the women and children of the settlers for protection. We
could hear the Indian war whoops in the distance. The confusion was
terrible and twelve of the women were prematurely confined during the
first twenty-four hours. I helped Dr. Miller, post surgeon, and for
forty-eight hours I had no sleep and hardly time to eat. Finally,
completely exhausted I fell asleep on the floor, with my little daughter
by