es, some coffee, salt and sugar, strapped it
all (weighing almost seventy pounds) on my back, and started toward
evening for our cabin in the wilderness. I had to walk about fourteen
miles along the Indian trail, but in spite of the heavy burden I made
that distance in a short time, knowing that the dear ones at home were
threatened by hunger; perhaps the howling of the prairie wolves near my
path also had something to do with the speed. There are events in the
life of every person which stand out like mile-stones along the road,
and so attract the attention of the traveler on life's journey that they
always remain vivid pictures in his memory. My arrival at our cabin that
evening was one of those events in our humble life. I will not attempt
to describe the joy which my burden brought to all of us, especially to
the young mother with the little babe at her breast.

CHAPTER IV.

Future Hopes--Farm Life--Norwegian Pioneers--The Condition of the
Immigrant at the Beginning of the Fifties--Religious Meetings--The
Growth of the Settlement--Vasa Township Organized--A Lutheran Church
Established--My Wedding--Speculation--The Crisis of 1857--Study of Law
in Red Wing--I am admitted to the Bar and elected County
Auditor--Politics in 1860--War is Imminent.

We had now commenced a new career, located on our farm claims in the
boundless West, with no end to the prospects and possibilities before
us. We felt that independence and freedom which are only attained and
appreciated in the western wilds of America.

From the Mississippi river and almost to the Pacific Ocean, was a
verdant field for the industry, energy and enterprise of the settler. To
be sure, our means and resources were small, but somehow we felt that by
hard work and good conduct we would some day attain the comfort,
independence and position for which our souls thirsted. We did not sit
down and wait for gold mines to open up before us, or for roasted pigs
to come running by our cabin, but with axe and spade went quietly to
work, to do our little part in the building up of new empires.

[Illustration: OUR WAGON.]

In the beginning of May, my father came from Illinois and brought us a
pair of steers and a milch cow; this made us rich. We made a wagon with
wheels of blocks sawed off an oak log; we also bought a plow, and,
joining with our neighbors of Belle Creek, had a breaking team of two
pair of oxen. That breaking team and that truck wagon, wi