Popular Education, and Other Matters. 245 



Good in appearance (he was a Mr. Mitchell, member of the 

 Presbyterian Church and president of the principal bank in 

 Freeport), came up to the platform and gathered the com- 

 mittee together. He then said, " I will myself stand the 

 expense of an immediate repetition of this course of lec- 

 tures//-^, if Prof. Youmans will stay and deliver them ! ! ! " 

 My engagements, as you know, made this impossible. 

 I remain, with much love, your vagrant husband, 



E. L. Y. 



WiNONA, February 4, 1868. 



MY DEAR WIFE : I almost dread to sit down to write to 

 you. I seem fated to send you such a lugubrious set of 

 reports that you must be very much wearied with them. 

 Still, if only for the sake of the unities, I am constrained 

 to continue my grad-grindings. It is now Tuesday morn- 

 ing. I left a week ago yesterday morning for Rochester, 

 gave one lecture there and one in St. Paul, and consumed 

 the entire week, only getting back very late Saturday night. 

 The prairie winds drifted the hard dry snow over the rail- 

 roads, filling the deep cuts as with ice. To be four or six 

 hours in a single snow-bank was a common experience. I 

 counted myself most fortunate in getting back as I did, as 

 the roads are now almost completely blocked, and the 

 train that started out yesterday morning returned at night 

 after having only reached the first station. I lectured at 

 Coldwater on Saturday night, and while under ordinary 

 circumstances I could arrive there by leaving Friday morn- 

 ing, I cannot now venture to leave here later than to-mor- 

 row morning. My visit home,* therefore, although by no 

 means spoiled, has been greatly interrupted and disturbed. 

 The cold has been very intense from ten to twenty-eight 

 degrees below zero and for this I was not at all prepared. 



* Youman's father and mother had left the Saratoga farm, and were 

 now staying at Winona. 



