neighbors on the south; and took up with some French who moved in
on the east, the families of Pierre Lacroix and Napoleon B. Bouchard. We
called the one "Pete Lackwire" and the other "Poly Busher." They were
the only French people who came into the township. They were good
neighbors, and fair farmers, and their daughters made some of the best
wives the sons of the rest of us got. One of my grandsons married the
prettiest girl among their grandchildren--a Lacroix on one side and a
Bouchard on the other.

It may well be understood that I now took no part in the township
history, which gets more complex with the coming in of more settlers;
but it was about this time that what is now Vandemark Township began
agitating for a separate township organization. We were attached to
Centre Township, in which was situated the town of Monterey Centre. This
town, dominated by the County Ring, clung to all the territory it could
control, so as to spend the taxes in building up the town. A great
four-room schoolhouse was finished in the summer of 1860; most of it
built by taxes paid by the speculators who still owned the bulk of
the land.

The Vandemark Township people made a great outcry about the shape of
Centre Township, and called it "The Great Crane," with our township as
the neck, and a lot of other territory back of us for the body, and
Monterey Centre for the head. I took no part in this agitation, for I
was burning with a sense of indignation at the way people treated me;
but the County Ring compromised by building us a schoolhouse on my
southwest corner, now known as the Vandemark School. But I cared nothing
about this. I had no children to go to school, and while I never ceased
to dream of a future with Virginia as my wife, I kept saying to myself
that I never should have a family. Consistency is the least of the
necessaries of our visions and dreams. I never tried to see Virginia. I
avoided the elder and Grandma Thorndyke. I knew that she was disgusted
with me for even an innocent connection with the Thorkelson matter, and
I supposed that Virginia felt the same way. So I went on trying to be as
near to a hermit as I could.

2

I know now that things began to change for me in the minds of the people
when Rowena's baby was christened. This took place early in the winter.
Magnus asked me to go to the church; so I was present when Magnus and
Rowena stood before the altar in a ceremony which Rowena would have
given anythin