d still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin
piping, all the while covered with confusion. When I arose we both
looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes--just
kept right on tatting.

Finally Mrs. Cowan asked, "Don't you like music, Judge?" He looked up
with a far-away look in his eyes and said, "Yes, martial music in the
field." Then we knew he had never heard a thing, for, as Mrs. Cowan
explained to me as we were making a fresh pot of tea, "He is the kindest
man in the world. If he had noticed you were singing he would have said
something nice."

Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out
there to live. The first time I came into town was on a load of wild hay
drawn by my father's oxen. The man I later married saw me, a girl of
sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then. A few days
later he drove past our farm and saw me out in the corn field trying to
scare away the blackbirds. I was beating on a pan and whooping and
hollering. That finished him for he said he could see I had all the
requisites for a good wife, "Industry and noise."

During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the war, we were
repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety. This we were
loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock. We often saw
the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sometimes heard
shots. One day I was with my children at a neighbor's when a new alarm
was given by a courier. Without waiting for us to get any clothes or
tell my parents, the farmer hitched up and we fled to Fort Snelling. It
was two months before I ever saw my home or parents.

There were three grasshopper years when we never got any crops at
Middle Lake. When I say that, I mean just what I say; we got nothing.
The first time they came the crops were looking wonderful. Wheat fields
so green and corn way up. The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously
and this was the first year for ours. I went out to the garden about ten
o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans,
onions and lettuce that were simply luscious. The tomatoes were setting
and everything was as fine as could be. I felt so proud of it. The men
came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country
and the crops. While we were talking it gradually darkened. The men
hastily went out to see if anything should be brought in before the