dickered with Jim Boyd for a breaking plow, which I
admitted I should need the first thing, as soon as Jim mentioned it
to me[10].

[10] The date on the deed shows this to have been May 25, 1855--the day
the author first saw what has since become Vandemark Township. Although
its history is so far written, the township was not yet legally in
existence.--G.v.d.M.

"This is Mr. Thorkelson," said he as he rejoined me after two or three
false starts. "He's going to be a neighbor of yours. I'm going to
locate him on a quarter out your way--Mr. Vandemark, Mr. Thorkelson."

Magnus Thorkelson gave me his hand bashfully. He was then about
twenty-five; and had on the flat cap and peasant's clothes that he wore
on the way over from Norway. He had red hair and a face spotted with
freckles; and growing on his chin and upper lip was a fiery red beard.
He was so tall that Henderson L. tried to tell him not to come to the
Fourth of July celebration, or folks might think he was the fireworks;
but Magnus only smiled. I don't believe he understood: for at that time
his English was not very extensive; but after all, he is as silent now
as he was then. We looked down on all kinds of "old countrymen" then,
and thought them much below us; but Magnus and I got to be friends as we
drove the cows across the prairie, and we have been friends ever since.
It was not until years after that I saw what a really remarkable man
Magnus was, physically, and mentally--he was so mild, so silent, so
gentle. He carried a carpet-bag full of belongings in one hand, which he
put in the wagon, and a fiddle in its case in the other. It was a long
time, too, before I began to feel how much better his fiddling was than
any I had ever heard. It didn't seem to have as much tune to it as the
old-style fiddling, and he would hardly ever play for dances; but his
fiddle just seemed to sing. He became a part of the history of Vandemark
Township; and was the first fruits of the Scandinavian movement to our
county so far as I know.

2

As we turned back over the way I had come for about half a mile, we met
coming into town, the well-known spanking team of horses of Buckner
Gowdy; but now it was hitched to a light buggy, but was still driven by
Pinck Johnson, who had the horses on a keen gallop as if running after a
doctor for snake-bite or apoplexy. It was the way Gowdy always went
careering over the prairies, killing horses by the score, and laughingly
answering critic