EARLY MANHOOD IN THE MIDDLE WEST 1 1 1 



water ever became too shallow, more quicksand 

 was removed, permitting the wall of the well to 

 settle and more bricks to be added at the top. 

 On several occasions afterwards the knowledge of 

 this safe method of sinking a well in treacherous 

 earth was most useful to me. 



It took us nearly all summer to erect Mr. Allen's 

 house and repair the barn and while the latter was 

 in progress I had my first experience with fever 

 and ague. In those days Peruvian bark and 

 whiskey bitters, quinine and blue-mass pills, were 

 the invariable remedies or, more accurately speak- 

 ing, palliatives, for when cold weather came on 

 the disease disappeared only to return the follow- 

 ing year. 



In the fall we got a job to build a house on Hog 

 Prairie, the very name of which implied still more 

 unhealthy conditions. Colonel Place, Ex-Mayor 

 of La Porte, owned a large tract of land along the 

 sluggish, meandering Kankakee river, upon which 

 cattle were grazed. One of his neighbors said it 

 was a rich farm but there were two objections to 

 it: six months in the year cattle had to be driven 

 three miles to the river to get a drink, and the 

 other six months they had to be loaded on a flat- 

 boat in order to have safe standing ground while 

 they drank. 



