gy, and the rest of the family followed in a day or
so with the cross old horse--now refreshed by my hay and grain, and the
rest we had given him,--in their rickety one-horse wagon. I remember how
Rowena looked back at us, her hair blowing about her face which looked,
just a thought, pale and big-eyed, as the Gowdy buggy went off like the
wind, with Buck's arm behind the girl to keep her from bouncing out.

This day's work was not to cease in its influence on Iowa affairs for
half a century, if ever. State politics, the very government of the
commonwealth, the history of Monterey County and of Vandemark Township,
were all changed when Buck Gowdy went off over the prairie that day,
holding Rowena Fewkes in the buggy seat with that big brawny arm of his.
Ma Fewkes seemed delighted to see Mr. Gowdy holding her daughter in
the buggy.

"Nobody can tell what great things may come of this!" she cried, as they
went out of sight over a knoll.

She never said a truer thing. To be sure, it was only the hiring by a
very rich man, as rich men went in those days, of three worthless hands
and a hired girl; but it tore the state's affairs in pieces. Whenever I
think of it I remember some verses in the _Fifth Reader_ that my
children used in school:

"Somewhere yet that atom's force
Moves the light-poised universe[11]."

[11] See _Gowdy vs. Buckner_, et al, Ia. Rep. Also accounts of relations
of the so-called Gowdy Estate litigation to "The Inside of Iowa
Politics" by the editor of these MSS.--in press.--G.v.d.M.

It was a great deal more important then, though, that on that afternoon
I was arrested for a great many things--assault with intent to commit
great bodily injury, assault with intent to kill, just simple assault,
unlawful assembly, rioting, and I don't know but treason. Dick McGill, I
am sure it was, told the first claim-jumper we visited that I was at the
head of the mob, and he had me arrested. I was taken to Monterey Centre
by Jim Boyd, the blacksmith, who was deputy sheriff; but he did the fair
thing and allowed me to get Magnus Thorkelson to attend to my stock
while I was gone.

I think that that passage in the Scriptures which tells us to visit
those who are in prison as well as the sick, is a thing that shows the
Bible to be an inspired work; but, this belief has come to me through my
remembrance of my sufferings when I was arrested. Not that I went to
prison. In fact, I do not believe there was anythi