My Boyhood and Youth 



who had come drifting indefinitely westward 

 in covered wagons, seeking their fortunes like 

 winged seeds; all alike striking root and grip- 

 ping the glacial drift soil as naturally as oak 

 and hickory trees; happy and hopeful, estab- 

 lishing homes and making wider and wider 

 fields in the hospitable wilderness. The axe 

 and plough were kept very busy; cattle, horses, 

 sheep, and pigs multiplied; barns and corn- 

 cribs were filled up, and man and beast were 

 well fed; a schoolhouse was built, which was 

 used also for a church; and in a very short time 

 the new country began to look like an old one. 

 Comparatively few of the first settlers suf- 

 fered from serious accidents. One of our neigh- 

 bors had a finger shot off, and on a bitter, frosty 

 night had to be taken to a surgeon in Portage, 

 in a sled drawn by slow, plodding oxen, to have 

 the shattered stump dressed. Another fell from 

 his wagon and was killed by the wheel passing 

 over his body. An acre of ground was reserved 

 and fenced for graves, and soon consumption 

 came to fill it. One of the saddest instances 

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