Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-05-03

lengthwise of the road and sawed cross
ties; on top of them square timber
lengthwise for the rail to lie on, which
was a piece of tire iron with holes
punched through the rail and long
spikes driven in to fasten the rail to the
timber. The cars were drawn by
pair of horses. That was the only rail-
road in all the great west, so you see
the need of our own team. After we
crossed the Mississippi river at ST.
Louis, on ferr.s' boat, the country was
very thinly settled. In crossing Nine
ty Mile prairie we were at one time out
of sight of any house, and yet that
prairie was just as level as the sea, and
not tree or house or fence to obstruct
the view. saw on that prairie acres
and acres of sand-hill cranes, wild geese,
thousands and thousands of prairie
chicken. That Dight We reached lit
tie hamlet where a half-dozen families
from New England had settled and
taken up land and made themselves
farms. One man, an old Vermonter,
had built house little larger than
traveller that might be passing that
way. AS it was almost shutdown when
we reached that place we were very
glad to find place to stay, for we had
begun to think we would have to sleep
on the open prairie. This man had a
wife and one daughter-a stout, solid,
healthy looking girl that looked as
though she was able to hoe her own
row. After supper as we were all seat
ed around the fire, the old man with
his pipe and the mother and daughter
with their knitting, they piled US with
a great many questions as to where we
were going. They seemed to take a
great deal of interest in our affairs. AS
my brother (Which was to be- had been
sick, he asked to be shown to bed,
which the old mother did with all the
motherly care she would have shown
one of her own children. When she
seated herself again IN the circle she
turned to me and said: "What are you
young men travelling all alone for?
What is your object?" I told her in
seach of wives. She said, SIS there no
girls down in Missouri that you need
to come to Illinois?' / told her yes,
but you have reard in the good book
where Abraham made his servant
swear that he should not take of the
daughters of the land to wife for his
son Isaac, but he should take one of
the daughters of bis own people and
kindred. and as we were born and rails
ed i'm New England we wanted to take
of the daughters of the people of our
own kind; and we have heard there
are handsome, lovely girls in this coun-
try, we thought we would like to see
for ourselves, and as / had finished
speaking the mother and daughter
Both spoke at once and said, "If that
is what you are after you can stop right
here, you need go no farther; we have
got lots of pretty girls all about here;
you can get wife right here" 1 tell
you, Mr.. Editor, we were well cared
for and in the morning we told them
we were going on farther north and see
what we could see. We asked Tor our
bill. They all said, 81 guess we won't
charge you anything;" but weinsisted
on paying for our fare. NOW, if you
don't find anybody to suit you, come
back" I told them we would be gone
about two weeks, and if we did not get
any wives in that time we would come
back. So goodbye, and drove on.
The last day. just at night, we crossed
the Illinois river on ferry. After
crossing l saw on the river bottom a
large flock of wild turkeys. hurried
and loaded the gun and killed one of
them. We were then in four miles of
my girl, so did not stop to kill any
more of them. When we reached her
home, as l was presented to her father
and mother. / handed her father the
turkey had killed. He said, II have
always heard you were a great hunter
and now / know it.n Well, to make
the story short, after l was married
and on our return, we passed that same
place, but we did not stop for it was too
early in the day to put up and we were
in too much of hurry to reach home,
but one of them saw us and the mother
and daughter came to the window.
We bowed to them and drove on. I
I have always been sorry l did not stop
and call for glass of water, but We
can't always think of everything. At
ter we reached home We found good
many families were moving into the
valley for the sake of schooling their
children and building homes for them
sci Ives, and as everything such as
shingles had to made by hand land very
hard to be got, and my old pard took
a contract 10 make some thirty or forty
thousand shingles. We, both of us,
understood the business first rate, so
we found, or rather we knew, of fine
body of pine timber in the mountains
below the Shut-In-that belonged to
Uncle Samuel-and right here 1 will
say old Uncle Samuel was very kind
in those days to his children that went
out into the new country to make
themselves homes. Now you boys
just make yourselves at home, and if
you want any timber CT building ma
terial off my land just help yourselves