hose wonderful granite rocks which spring up out of the
prairie, looking like old hay-ricks in a meadow.

There were people in our frontier town who would have graced any
society, and with the elasticity of true culture adapted themselves to
all circumstances. At my residence, which adjoined the _Democrat_
office, I held fortnightly receptions, at which dancing was the
amusement, and coffee and sandwiches the refreshments. At one of these,
I had the honor to entertain Gov. Ramsey, Lieut.-Gov. Donnelly, State
Treas. Shaeffer, and a large delegation from St. Paul; but not having
plates for seventy people, I substituted squares of white printing
paper. When Gov. Ramsey received his, he turned it over, and said:

"What am I to do with this?"

"That is the ticket you are to vote," was the answer.

In our social life there was often a weird mingling of civilization and
barbarism. Upon one occasion, a concert was given, in which the audience
were in full dress, and all evening in the principal streets of St.
Cloud a lot of Chippewas played foot-ball with the heads of some Sioux,
with whom they had been at war that day.

In those days, brains and culture were found in shanties. The leaders of
progress did not shrink from association with the rude forces of savages
and mother nature.

St. Cloud was the advance post of that march of civilization by which
the Northern Pacific railroad has since sought to reach the
Sascatchewan, a territory yet to be made into five wheat-growing States
as large as Illinois. All the Hudson Bay goods from Europe passed our
doors, in wagons or on sleds, under the care of the Burbanks, the great
mail carriers and express men of Minnesota, and once they brought a
young lady who had come by express from Glasgow, Scotland, and been
placed under the charge of their agent at New York, and whom they handed
over to the officer she had come to marry on the shores of Hudson Bay.
But their teams usually came east with little freight, as the furs sent
to Europe came down in carts, not one of which had so much iron as a
nail in them, and which came in long, creaking trains, drawn by oxen or
Indian ponies.

In each train there was generally one gorgeous equipage--a cart painted
blue, with a canvas cover, drawn by one large white ox in raw-hide
harness. In this coach of state rode the lady of the train--who was
generally a half-breed--on her way to do her shopping in St. Paul. Once
the lady was a full-bloode