GRAPES. 309 



I went South, and while cares and burdens fell thick and fast upon my 

 shoulders, strength also c^me to bear them, so that, at the end of two 

 years, instead of leaving my children to the care of others, I returned to 

 Minneapolis to resume the fight for existence with a very small income 

 indeed. It was a hand to hand fight, I assure you; sewing, then boarders, 

 housekeeping, etc., until the great real estate boom struck our city, when 

 I was enabled through the sale of my one house and lot to begin to step 

 out of the slough of financial despair. 



I might interline this little synopsis of the first years of my widowed 

 life with enough to fill a large volume, but I pass on to the grapes. 



I had such a growing estimation of real estate that 40 or 50 or even 

 60-foot lots held no more attraction, and I longed to possess something I 

 could denominate "acres." I had no choice of what grew on those 

 acres, whether berries or beans, so long as they had water privileges and 

 some trees, and so for months I was a constant caller on real estate men. 

 (Many of those have since quit business.) Through this medium I vis- 

 ited nearly every addition in Minneapolis, — and I will say, in this con- 

 nection, that I will gladly furnish free information to any one desiring it 

 of any location within a radius of 10 miles of the city. 



But, it was not till May 9, 1889, that I saw my present home on Christ- 

 mas lake, and saw, for the first time in my life, a vineyard. The land 

 was just what I had been looking for, and the bargain for it was closed 

 that very day. Some months before, a young man in business then in 

 St. Paul had promised me, jokingly, that if ever I bought a farm he 

 would run it for me, and I now wrote him, claiming his promise. 

 In a few days he came out with me to look over the situation; he had 

 been used to farms with many acres of grain, but was as ignorant as 

 myself on the grape question. ,So, after taking the little patch carefully 

 in, he replied, with decided sarcasm: "Well, this isn't much, but I 

 want to leave St. Paul, and I suppose when I am not busy here I can find 

 plenty to do among the neighbors." I feebly assented, for to me those 

 long staring rows of brown stubs were possessed of great possibilities, 

 and I think my feelings were akin to those of a young chicken taking its 

 first peer at the world— "it's very large and I may get lost, but I am in 

 for it. so I'll commence to scratch." 



There was neither house nor barn on the place, only a little berry house 

 or two, and taking' into these such articles as we must have, we com- 

 menced. There were 900 Delaware, 1,100 Concord and about 200 mixed 

 varieties of grapes, about an acre of blackcap raspberries and, probably, 

 100 small apples trees on the land, the remainder being covered with trees; 

 and skirting the entire eastern front was the desired water privileges. To 

 say that none of us knew anything about grapes does not in any wise 

 express our ignorance, nor is there any single word in the English 

 language that will. 



We had everything to learn. The vines had already been raised from 

 their winter bed and fastened to the first wire of the trellis, and the buds 

 were bursting a little, but seemed to grow very slowly. "Never mind," 

 said the man of whom I had purchased, "they will soon climb fast enough. 

 Will six inches per 24 hours suit you?'" 



I thought him jesting, but have since learned to credit everything in 

 that line. It is not necessary to detail here the wonderful things that 

 first summer's work made manifest; every grape grower knows them — the 



