Omaha daily bee., 1909-11-07

stayed with a man who had come a long
way for provisions and the next morning
about 9 o'clock Mr.. Chester and Mr. Miller
arrived and I assure you there were three
happy men, but when I told them that I
got no money at Fort Riley things looked
different again. But we partly forgot the
present by relating our several experiences,
and when 1 heard them tell of their
troubles with mud, high water and lost
trail. etc., I concluded that my journey
was the most pleasanI or the three.
Well, here we were In Atchison, after an
eight days journey through mud, and
without money to get our provisions. So
we went to Mr.. Pomeroy's office and So
llclted aid from what had been sent to
Kansas by the states to help the settlers
on account Of the drouths the summer
before. I can assure you that we were
very grateful for we received much more
than we had expected.
We now secured our necessary provisions
and made ali possible haste for home, as
we had left our families with borrowed
food, from a man by the name Of Allen.
This mar lived about twenty miles up the
valley at Lake Sibley, on the north side of
the river from where Concordia now stands.
He had started for Atchison about a month
before and got showed in, it being the time
Of the great snow storm Of 1850 and 1861.
The snow came quietly and lay about two
feet deep on the level. On February %,
about three days before we started on our
trip to Atchison. this man Allen called to
us for help to get across Pete's creek. We
took our oxen and gave MIN the needed
assistance and borrowed the provisions of
him to last our families until we could
make the trip to Atchison.
The spring Of 1861 was as fine as 1t
could be. 1t seemed that Providence de-
termined to assist us after so strenuous
and dry a year as 1860 was. Sod corn
made from fifteen to thirty bushels and
everything else in proportion. This year
we had more corn than we could use so we
had to devise some way to dispose Of It.
We cleared off a threshing floor and put
up our wager covers around it to keep the
corn from flying around and threshed 1t
out with the old-fashioned wheat fail and
made a rude box and stretched smooth
wire on the top and sieved out the cobs,
then famed out the dust by holding It up
to the wind. We then loaded is up and
started for Fort Carney, a distance of $50
miles. We sold our corn to the govern
ment and traded our watermelons and
other truck to the soldiers for sugar. cof-
fee, tea and some old clothes. We made
the round trip in fifteen days and got
home ali right, but tired and worn out.
Cut wheat with a Scythe.
The year 1862 was not so good a crop
year. but some Of us succeeded in getting
In some spring wheat, We got a fair yield.
but the harvest was not so pleasant as
now. We cut our wheat with a scythe. ]
think one or two settlers had a cradle,
which was considered quite modern. We
threshed our grain with oxen. This was
done by clearing a round patch and throw
ing the straw as deep as the oxen could
walk on handy and then srfve them round
and round until they failed 1t out. We
then shook It well and threw the straw
aside and gathered up the loose grain and
famed It out by the wind. W. took this
crop with OK teams distance Of about lsC
miles. We made this trip in sixteen days.
I will now relate to you a few OF the
troubles that happened to the early sStlsl