The The House at the Foot of the Hill

Sauk County  Historical Society  Presents

The House at the Bottom of the Hill

By Mrs. Rose Anderson, Princeton, Minn.

Tuesday

The House at the Foot of the Hill – Early Days in Baraboo

By Mrs. Rose Anderson, Princeton, Minn.

This story contains language that may be offensive to some viewers. The Sauk County Historical Society does not condone the use of this language but includes it as an accurate reflection of society in the time it was written.

Baraboo Weekly News

Tuesday March 11,1926

Editor’s Note (1926) – the following is the first of a series of articles about early Baraboo written by Mrs. Rose Anderson, nee Rose La Moreaux, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. La Moreaux. The family came to Baraboo in 1855. The father was a contractor and built many houses in this city. The La Moreaux house was at 402 eighth avenue, diagonally across the street from this house occupied by George W. Burdick. The place is now the home of Rex Swanson.

Mrs. Otto Schussler, 2813 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis, is a niece of Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. Schussler often visits Baraboo, a guest at the home of Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Roser, 801 Ridge Street.

The people of Baraboo, now living in the vicinity of the old house will not recognize it as the house and Barney; at other times, walking of my story; for changes many have been made within and all about that old home, and many years ago it passed into the hands of strangers.

For more than sixty years it has been a silent witness of Baraboo’s wonderful progress. Sixty years ago it stood in a place often inhabited by savages, not it stands among churches, schools and thousands of Christian homes. (“A dear old house among the hills, one that I love.”)

It has been many years since I left my old home at Baraboo, Wisconsin, and in those years changes have been made there that make it almost impossible to recognize the old town.

From the porch of our summer cottage (Rock Haven) among the oaks and maples this beautiful Indian Summer day, one can see the sea gulls dipping low and hear the great waves of old Mille Lacs break upon the rocky shore, and while the soft sweet music of piano and violin can be heard inside the cottage and the red and yellow leaves fall like gold about me; my mind goes traveling back to the old life among the blue hills of Wisconsin and my childhood’s happy days there, before sorrow or care came into our lives, spoiling our Heaven and taking from us the belief that life was all joy, just one long dream of gladness.

My story of my old home is no lofty theme with a high sounding title; but just a remembering of joyous days and hours and funny little happenings which took place under that old roof more than sixty years ago the little candle lighted village of my childhood is no more. In its place a wonderful city has arisen; yet there are old landmarks, the hills and the vales are still there, and beautiful Devil’s Lake with its lovely colors of water and shore.

“Where the waves dash high on the pebbly strand. And shells are mixed with the pearly sand.” (Miss Dart)

I have visited many beautiful lakes since I left the old home but to my mind, not many can compare with that wonderful little lake, on whose shores I spent so many happy hours.

My father helped to build the first summer hotel there, the first of the old Cliff house, in the days when the roar and rattle of trains around was a dream of the future; and the sharp whistle of the little steamer, “Capitola”, the most exciting incident.

There were four children in our family, two sisters and two brothers, and each summer we spent many delightful days at the lake, sometimes driving out with my father’s little bay ponies. Hebrewing the whole distance there and back, swinging merrily along until we came where we could see a wide stretch of shore, and beyond it a glorified piece of water.

“Devil’s Lake’s blue calm in the distance lying, A cliff’s grey turrents reflected deep And green fringed shores where the trees were trying To guard for a season the lilies sleep.”

Joys many and sorrows, both have I known since I left my old home, yet it seems only yesterday that with my playmates I coasted down the old Baraboo hills over the bumpers and ice tracks. There were two good coasting hills, near the old home; Cheeks hills, the steepest, and the La Moreaux hill which was the safest; well you can imagine which one we loved best!

The old home stands at the front of one of those hills. There were hills on three sides of us. How those hills shut up in from the out side world! How sheltered we were from every sorrow and care in that dear old home; and guarded, as it seemed to my youthful imagination, by those grand old hills. What a good influence such a home makes on one’s whole life, and how many have gone down to ruin for the lack of such a home!

I was only a wee baby girl when I first saw those old blue hills; my father was one of Baraboo’s first settlers; coming there from Chesterland, Ohio, in search of a new home, and no prettier spot for location could ever have been found, situated as it was in the valley – nestled among the wooded hills where pure water and bracing air together with beautiful scenery made it indeed a place of rest. “I love thy rocks and rills, thy woods and templed hills,” sang itself there.

Not much wealth existed there at that time but no truer hearts could ever have been found than those that beat under the sunny skies of old Baraboo and in that delightful spot my father made our home, and from the number of locust trees around it mother gave it the name of “Locust House’ but to every one else it was “The house at the foot of the hill.”

Oh, you should have seen the old home as it was in the days of our childhood, when crowds of laughing children played about the sunny old dooryard and the gardens. But alas! those that gave the sunlight to that old home left it long ago, forever; and on the bright shores of the eternal river they await my coming.

Strangers who look upon that old house today, standing grey and aged looking and seemingly forsaken find it hard to understand my love for it, but if those old rooms could speak what interesting tales they could tell of those early days and of the dear friends who passed so often through its doorways, enjoyed its hospitality and who are now gone but not forgotten.

Every heart hold a sweet memory of its own early home; where the sunshine was brighter, the well water cooler and the birds sang sweeter than else where.

I remember that just at first mother thought that the sunset came too early there among the hills, and that at twilight there was a feeling of being shut in, but after a time we became accustomed to that.

“As the hills are around old Baraboo,” said my father, “so is the Lord around about his people.

Thursday March 18,1926

Part II

Home, Father, Mother and School Days

“Moonshine and starshine and falling dew, All in a garden that I once knew.

A song bird calling unto its mate

In a locust tree by an open gate;

And the distant sound of a purling stream Like the undertone of a beautiful dream; With moonshine and starshine and roses sweet And a carpet of green beneath our feet.”

Old Song

Springtime in old Baraboo was a season of the most enchanting loveliness. There were woods of blossoming trees, thickets of sweet scented shrubs and the Crawford fields of wild flowers which filled the old town with delicious perfume. Climbing vines twined around the trees, and grew over the fences, transforming them into arbors of beauty. No one could look upon Baraboo in those days without of feeling a rapture, but the crowning glory of the whole town was its roses, and surpassing all others were those in the yard and gardens about the house at the foot of the hill.

In those days when mother superintended their care, there was one more beautiful than all the rest; “The Ohio Rose’ we called it, for when father and mother were leaving Ohio they packed all their

belongings into a wagon and with father’s big bay horses they drove to Freeport, Illinois, where mother’s people lived. When they were all ready to start mother came dragging and old iron kettle with a rose bush in it. “Now, what is THAT?” demanded my father.

“My very best rosebush,” answered mother.

“Well, you can’t take it,” said father impatiently. “We have no room for it, so just leave it right here.”

“All right,” said my mother. “If you leave my rosebush you may just leave me, too.”

I was the baby then and she reached up and pulled me down from the high seat.

Father stood up in the wagon and looked down at her. She was just a little slip of a woman of about thirty, but he could see that she had made up her mind to defy him.

“Put the damned thing in the wagon, John.” He said to the driver, “and lets get out of here.”

Then he jumped out and helped mother into the vehicle with a grand flourish, and handed “baby” to her. ( He was beaten and he knew it!)

At Freeport, mother clipped off the tops and packed the rose roots in a small box and brought them with her by train to Mazomanie and from there over the bluffs into Baraboo in the old stage coach. In after years many a neighbor had a bush of those roses growing in her garden and all knew how mother “put” it all over father when they were leaving Ohio.

In that old home garden was a well of cold sparkling water; fifty-two feet deep. My father had that well dug and walled up, and up over the mossy stones came the buckets brim full of the purest water. There were two large cherry trees among whose branches each week mother hung the wash. There too were long rows of currant bushes, well kept vegetable beds, large lilac, snowdrop and almond bushes and in the front yard the roses and the brave old locusts.

Surrounded by all such loveliness stood the old home, a modest simple home, it was, that differed in no respect from many others in the little hamlet at that time, and in it we had the most delightful childhood.

Our parents were neither rich nor poor, neither learned nor illiterate, but loving and trusting each other, devoted to their children and extremely solicitous for their welfare.

Father was of French ancestry and belonged to a strong vigorous, long lived family.

Mother was the daughter of an Ohio farmer and of Scotch-Holland Dutch descent. Her people were of industrious habits, honest and God-fearing. She was of medium height and size, and possessed a most expressive and winning face, with dark blue eyes of singular beauty. Not one of her four children resembled her in face, figure of character; gentleness draped her like a garment and in speech she was kind and gracious.

The Old House

The rooms in the house at the foot of the hill were cozy, sunny old rooms with low ceilings and pretty casings.

In the parlor two south windows faced the town and an east window had a large June rose bush clinging all about, a worn wool carpet of read and brown upon the floor, and a low red and brown couch between the windows. There was the little Mason and Hamlin piano across one corner of the room, and a well filled what-not just filled with pretty trinkets in another corner; chairs and rockers, the marble topped table, and the old mantel where we children hung up our Christmas stockings, soft white curtains at the windows, and there hung upon the wall two pictures, one a charming bit of country roadside, and the other was a boat out on the waters; and in the other end of the boat sat an old man and woman. Below were these words:

“Manhood looks for with a careful glance

Time steadly plies the Oar.

While old Age calmly waits to hear

His summons from the other shore.”

The title of this picture was “From shore to shore”. As a child, I was always afraid of it and never looked at it except in daylight.

Opening out of the parlor was the dining room with its bright rag carpet, the long table with the great glass lamp hanging above it, and in one corner stood the old secretary with its shining silver handles and queer twisted legs. In it mother kept her silver and best china. (The “George Washington set” with its god and green bands). In the other side father kept his books.

On one of the walls there hung a lovely fruit picture; on the opposite side a picture of a woodchopper eating his dinner in the woods with his wife and baby beside him. That picture was called: “Better is a dinner where Love is.”

The room had a north window looking toward the hills and opening out of it eastward, was mother’s room with an east window “where the sun came in each morn” awaking a busy mother.

“Mother’s room was where she sat so often sewing when we came tumbling in from school. We went to her with everything, torn dresses and jackets, our lessons and rows, joys and griefs, everything was taken there to mother in that quiet room.

Our Playmates

Our playmates were the first boys and girls to make their home in the grand old town. Many of those boys rose to high rank, and most of the girls became successful hoe-makers. A few are still left and are happily enjoying the evening of life there.

Father did much toward building up Baraboo and at the time of his death owned four good houses in that city.

There was the quaint little dusty mill that he took charge of so many years for P.A. Bassett, the old court house that he worked upon and the First Presbyterian church that he helped to build, where we children attended Sunday school, put in our mite toward buying the bell, and where mother took part in all the donation parties and church affairs.

I have in my possession a Bible given to my sister, olive Jane, at Baraboo, Christmas 1850. That little band of Presbyterian teachers and scholars; how plainly I recall their faces; and it was all so many years ago.

Olive Jane’s teacher was Mrs. Munson. Don Andy had for his teacher Ira Humphrey and Eliza Chapman taught my class.

E.O. Holden prayed each Sunday that God might keep that little band of followers forever in His care, and Byron Lee taught us the sweet old songs.

Then there was the school house with its three departments, where in Miss Neathaway’s primary room I spent my first school days. High times we had in that old school house! The games we played and the battles we fought there! Sometimes books and slates flew high in the air followed by tin cups of water and sometimes the pail, water and all landed with a BANG in our midst with on one killed but quite a few wounded! And once for a season we were sent to school in the basement of the old Methodist church where Squire Martin’s daughter taught the “Baraboo Move-a-bouts”.

Then as we grew older Olive Jane changed over to the Girl’s Seminary, and father handed Don Andy over to the tender mercies of Prof. Hobart at the Collegiate Institute.

“Professor,” said my father; “Here are two outlaws and see if you can pound a little learning into their heads and their mother and I will be greatly obliged to you.”

“I will be glad to try,” answered Prof. Hobart. “Do you know,” he went on; “there has always been something in common between all outlaws and myself. We shall get along splendidly.” (And we did with the exception of an occasional small scrap with Miss Cunningham, an assistant teacher, but we always listened with pleasure to the patient voice of Madam Hobart).

Madam Hobart came and took me by the hand. “This little girl,” said she, “has not the appearance of an outlaw.”

“No,” said Father, his black eyes twinkling. “No, she has not, but appearances are sometime deceiving.”

The Hobart School, the old Collegiate Institute was just a little bit of Heaven on earth and there are still a few men and women scattered about the United States today who are proud to say that they were once pupils of Prof. Hobart at the Institute. All that I ever learned at any school that amounted to anything (and that was little enough, dear knows!) Madam taught me at that old school.

The professor was a wonderful man with the boys, they all loved him, and were ready to follow him anywhere, and he led them wisely.

After a few weeks Don Andy came home one day with a note for father which he opened and read aloud to mother:

New Athletic Rooms at the Institute! Boxing taught! Lessons in the manly art of self-defense given by the best instructor, ten lessons One Dollar. Prof. Hobart.

“Oh, The God help us!” cried my mother. “ I never would have believed it of the professor! Wanting to teach the boys how to fight when they know too much about it now. Don Andy fights all the time,” she continued. “What will become of him if you give him this chance? He has Henan, the prize fighter’s picture, framed and hanging on his bedroom wall and I wish that you would take it down and burn it. I can stand as much as most people, I think, but I don’t like to have a prize fighter’s picture hanging on the walls of my house. It is low! Yes, it is low!” she said.

“Well,” said father, “ if he will fight all the time let him go about it systematically. Here is your dollar, Henan,” said he to Don Andy, “and if you don’t get your wood sawed, and behave yourself I’ll can you.”

After Don Andy had gone, mother and father went up to look at Henan. He hung upon the wall in a beautiful frame, a great bullet-headed, thick necked, red faced brute crouched low like some animal just ready to spring, and Don Andy had written on a card and stuck it in a corner of the frame. “Henan, am the boy! And we will give him a reception when we get him down to Troy!”

My father leaned against the wall and laughed and laughed.

After that he called Don Andy, “ Henan.”

Mother looked at the punching bag that was suspended from the ceiling, at the pictures of game roosters and race horses upon the walls, then at Henan and there were tears in her eyes and a look of fear upon her sweet face.

(To be continued)

From Charles Wing

To Mrs. Anderson –

I read your article in The News and it made me think of your family and the old mill. I lived on the hill one block east, south side, of the road. That was from 1861 to 1864. I was about 13, and every summer I had to go at noon through the hot sun to “the house at the foot of the hill” after drinking water from your well. There were two old oaken buckets, most covered buckets, iron bound buckets that hung in the well, and that water tasted good. The well was on the corner, at the front of the house, but does not show now. I go past there often when riding about town.

Don was a school friend of mine and I think there was a sister Olive. I do not remember you. We came to Baraboo the same year as your family, 1855, and rented a different house, one on the hill for $3.50 per month. It is there yet. Later my father bought on the corner east of the Presbyterian church, a house and two lots for $300. There was a rail fence around it; no water except that which was caught in a rain barrel. The man from who we purchased the house kept a yoke of oxen chained to an oak tree all winter. The tree was all the shelter the animals had. There are now two additions on the house and two more houses on the lots. The old house is now owned by Henry Koppke. Time has changed. The street I live on now, 326 Forth, about three blocks east of the courtyard, at that time, about 1858-60 was covered with hazel brush. The ground being low there the bushes grew high over my head and the road was a cow path through the brush, now a nice paved street.

What has become of your brother, Don?

326 Fourth Street Baraboo, Wis

Thursday March 25, 1926

Part III

Charles Wing

The neighborhood that we lived in in those old days, was blessed with children, many children. In one house close by, very close, there were nine, and across the street from the nine, in a small one story house were eight. Each home held four to nine children. There was just one home on the street where there was only one child, and all the rest of us looked down on that small family as upon something accursed.

The priest’s house across the street, south of us, was the only quiet home in the neighborhood. He spent much of his time on the porch facing the House at the Foot of the Hill, reading. That gave him a good chance to see and hear what went on, and right here and now I want to say that Father Ryan enjoyed the funny little happenings as well as any of us. Whenever things began to happen over our way he always held his book in such a position that he could easily see what was going on. People often said that he never

laughed, never was known too, but they did not know his as well as we, the children of the House at the foot of the Hill did; for we made him laugh often.

“A dead game four flusher,” Don Andy called him, because he never tattled on him to father when he heard him swear.

He was a tall, spare old priest, loose muscle, black hair, with wonderful blue grey Irish eyes, and dark, but for all the depths of his eyes and the squareness of his chin there was something boyish about him, some hint that his imagination had plenty of elbow room; and he believed in fairies, “Faith he did!” Wonderful tales he could tell you about them!

From the time that I peeked through the pickets of his fence to see how he looked, we were friends.

“If you please,” said I, “are you Father Ryan, the priest?”

“Faith! That I am,” he answered. “Now shure, who are ye?”

“I am Eunice Rose,” I told him; “and I live just across the street from you. I knew when you moved in for I was watching you;” and I laughed at him.

“I will bear lots of watching,” said he; “What can I do for you now?”

“Well, please, Father Ryan,” said I, “now are there really, truly fairies in old Ireland and did you ever see them?”

“Faith,” said he, with a mysterious look. “They often whispered to me, and there are those who will tell you that old Ireland is full of them. There are not so many in this country, but there are quite a few, so I’ve been told, in Central Park, New York City.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed; “Do you think that they will ever come to Baraboo?”

“Faith,I don’t just know, it do be hard getting over the hills!” he answered. And once when we children went over to tell Father Ryan that it was our father’s birthday –(the 17th of March), the old priest declared! “Shure, he is an Irishman, and I know that he peels his potatoes with his thumb nail, not don’t he?”

“No!” cried Dan Andy; “he don’t dare to. Mother would skin him alive if he tried to do anything like that!”

It was too good to keep, so the old man had to tell father about it, although we children did not know it until long afterwards.

“A wonderful man, a real man,” said my father speaking of Father Ryan; “and I always enjoy spending an hour with him.”

“An interesting man!” said the priest speaking of father; “good home maker and I enjoy his company.”

He gave us children all new names. He always called me, “The Lump;” Olive Jean, the “Colleen;” and to him, Don Andy was always “Larry”. He laughed loud and long once when he heard the children in the neighborhood calling me “The Lump.”

He often said that we were the joy of his old life. “Sure, you bring me back my childhood”, he exclaimed to us once. And when Charles threw stones at a cat in his yard and smashed the parsonage window, he was worried to death that father might find it out and can Charles, so he came to mother about it . “Shure, it was the cat’s fault entirely,” he said to mother. “Faith, a cat, you know has such tantalizing looks and aggravating ways, shure you can’t blame the byes at all!”

Mother sat down and laughed after he went away.

“Father Ryan,” said I, one day through the pickets. “Don Andy says there are no fairies, that it is all a big lie, now is it?”

“Faith, Don Andy is a radical, don’t mind him at all. Sure there are fairies, faith there are, lots of them! Ask your mother, all good mothers believe in fairies.”

“She don’t know,’ I mourned; “she says that she never lived in Ireland!” That made him laugh and I went away comforted.

(To Be Continued)

EDITOR’S NOTE - O.D. Brandenburg of Madison has been ill at the Loraine hotel in Madison for several days. He is about again. He writes he is reading about the La Moreaux family

The House at the Foot of the Hill – articles with great interest. Mrs. Anderson, the writer of the sketches, is a clever woman. Mr. Brandenburg says he did not coast down the La Moreaux hill but Cheek’s hill. They are near to each other.

Thursday April 1, 1926

The “House at the Foot of the Hill” is at 402 Eighth Avenue, Baraboo Wis.

THE HALLOWEEN PARTY IN THE OLD PARLOR, THE THRONE ROOM OF OUR CHILDHOOD.

At mid-night in a garden old in the darkness by my father’s well , Come softly out, and you can see where pale white ghosts and goblins dwell!

Social life in Baraboo in those old days, was much the same as in the villages of its size. There were musical concerts – for music was in the old Court House, there were parties, there were balls almost as essential as bread and butter in Baraboo; and every one kept the Holidays royally.

About the first festivity that I seem to remember, was when the Ladies Sewing society met at the House at the Foot of the Hill.

The mothers came to sew for the poor and the sick, and to visit each other.

Mother served coffee, sandwiches, doughnuts, cookies, crullers and chocolate.

The young people came in the evening, played the piano and sang together, played games for a while, had lunch and went home early.

Mild little parties those were! Not very much like the parties of these days at which they sometimes serve “hootch”, dope and dance the “shimmie.”

But the parties that I liked best were the children’s Halloween parties, with their wonderful little suppers of bread and butter, cold chicken, great plates of ginger bread, little individual pies and cookies. And always there sat a large plaster cat in the center of the table, and on each end a pumpkin basket filled with apples, nuts and candies.

Father bought that cat from a peddler, mother painted him black and gave him to us children for Hallowe’en. Don Andy named him D.J. Brown after an old colored man who sometimes worked for father and who was so black that he shone.

Don Andy used to sing; “There’s a cat in our town and his name is Brown!”

No Hallowe’en would have seemed right without J.D. in the center of the table; and Prescott Longley always declared that there were times when D.J. put up his back and spit at him!

Father used to light up the parlor for us on Hallowe’en nights, with two great Jack’ O Lanterns in the front windows facing the town, then Olive Jane and Don Andy draped themselves in white sheets and opened the door for those who came.

We frolicked in every room in the old house those nights, even to the attic, and that was very small and opened out of Don Andy’s room.

Father made us a throne chair and painted it white. Mother trimmed it with gold paper and made a gold crown to go with it.

It sat in the old parlor one night each year (in state), and over it hung “From Shore to Shore.” Those nights we played at being “Kings and Queens.”

We voted in a King or Queen who sat upon the throne for that evening and directed the games; and the ghost and goblin stories the children told, the grown ups seemed to think worth listening to.

I had never sat upon the throne, it had always been one of the older girls, but one Hallowe’en night they led me in and seated me there.

I was Queen at last! How wonderful it all seemed to me at the time!

Someone put the gold crown on my head, they all went down on one knee before me, they danced around me and sang; “Hail to our Queen!”

It was all so grand, so altogether real. I was speechless with the glory of it !

“Now,” said some one. “You are to tell the first story,” and with out knowing a word of what I was going to tell, I began:

“It’s about a ghost who sometimes walks in our very own garden,” said I.

“For on every Hallowe’en that ever was, or ever will be, a man, all blood without any head, walks three times around my father’s well at midnight!”

I heard my father laugh.

“Oh!” gasped my mother, “What a thing to tell.”

But I was delighted with myself! Just to think that I could conjure up a thing like that on such short notice!

Don Andy got up and smashed the gold crown down over one ear and I wore it that way all the rest of the evening to the great enjoyment of all the children there.

“God save the queen!” exclaimed my brother. “She can tell a bigger one that I can!”

And that is how it all came about, that once upon a time, for a few hours I was a queen wore a gold crown and directed my subjects from a throne.

But- that story of mine turned out badly after all; for it made the children all afraid to go anywhere near the well after sunset – and worst of all was that I was afraid myself!

Editor’s note: Court Commissioner H.L. Halsted is reading the articles by Mrs. Anderson with unusual interest. He has a deed to the “House at the Foot of the Hill” which shows that his father, the late James H. Halsted, purchased the property from Electa Lemoreaux on July 18,1883. It will be noticed that she spells the name with a small ”m”. Levi Crouch was a notary republic and the witnesses were J.H. Whitney and Levi Crouch. The property sold for $650 and is worth about three times as much at the present time.

Mr. Halsted also has the deed to the first lot to the west, also purchased by James H. Halsted from Charles La Moreaux. The date is November 10,1883, and the price paid was $350. Charles L. La Moreaux is a brother of Mrs. Anderson, the author of the articles. The last deed was witnessed by J.E. Horton and Adelaide V. Norstrom while the notary was John E. Norstom.

Thursday, April 8, 1926

Part V

A FUNERAL BY THE WAYSIDE

“Maybe rank grass will choke a little grave Where cruel rains beat down and winds moan past.”

Unknown

The House at the foot of the Hill was ever a home of joyous laughter, but it had its hours of sorrow as well as its days of gladness, and the golden sunlit day and hour of sorrow came to my sister, Olive Jane.

Once upon a time, on her way to school, she came upon a little black dog by the wayside. One of his tiny legs was broken. Olive Jane gathered him in her dress skirt and carried him home.

Mother made him a little bed; Olive Jane washed and fed him and then put him into it, and our good, strong, dependable, little father set the broken leg, and told my sister that she could keep him.

“I am not a surgeon,” said my father. “ I have never learned to set bones, but I have done the best that I know how, and most likely he will always walk lame.”

The way that little black dog with the white ring around his neck, crept into our hearts and fell for our ways was certainly surprising. He lay there and ate and slept and rested and came out splendidly with never a limp at all. Olive Jane named him “Ring Ding” because of the little ring of white about his neck. Dear as he was, he had one very bad fault; he was quarrelsome with other dogs and always ready to fight. A neighbor of ours, a Mr. Dean, belonged to the navy, and on one of his visits home he brought his children a goat, and his little daughter, Alice, named her “Nancy Lou.” Whenever we children went for a day in the woods or walked out to the lake or rambled by the riverside, Nancy Lou and Ring Ding never failed to be there, too.

Each mother put up a lunch for her children and there was always sure to be a bite in each little basket for Ring Ding and Nancy Lou. Nancy Lou used to go up on the high rocks at Devil’s Lake like a bird. She went up the rocks as easily as Galli Curci does the high notes. She would look down and call to us to come up, she stamped and shook her head and butted the rocks while we sat below and laughed at her.

Mrs. Dean always said to us as we left home; “Now, don’t you start anything with Nancy Lou, for she has a very bad disposition and when once started no one can stop her. It got to be a sort of a joke with us; “Now don’t start anything you can’t stop!”

Ring Ding often went up the street to play with the Dean children. They were all at the Houseat the Foot of the Hill so much of the time that he seemed to think that they belonged there and it they failed to appear he went after them. Sometimes Nancy Lou lost her temper and chased him home and the only way that he could save himself was to get under the door steps and the way she butted those steps made

people stop and look on; and once when mother went out to drive her away she charged mother and drove her into the house.

One day while we children were playing in the yard, Ring Ding came out of the house and went up the street. “ He is going to play with Nancy Lou,” said my sister, “and maybe she will chase him home.” But by noontime he had not returned and Olive Jane was just starting out to look for him when Robert Dean came in. He had been crying.

“What is it, Robert?” asked mother. “Tell us.”

“ Ring Ding is dead!” sobbed Robert. “He started a fight with Bloom’s bull dog and the dog killed him. We have him over in our yard.” Said he.

Olive Jane threw herself down among the grass and flowers in the old yard and wept her hear out.

“Father Ryan,” she called through the pickets, “did you hear me cry? My little dog is dead!” How often we went to that good old man for comfort, and how well he understood our sorrows!

“We are going to bury him this afternoon at three o’clock, in the back garden among the roses and all the children in this neighborhood and lots of others are coming to his funeral, and Don Andy has made a little wooden cross to stand on the grave.”

Father Ryan came to the fence and gave Olive Jane a small celluloid cross with a silken cord; on it was printed two words; “Semper Fidelis (always faithful”. “Hang this on the cross that Don Andy made,” said he.

Don Andy sent for John Clark to come to the funeral and help him to bury Ring Ding, but Clark was not at home so Ferguson, the next best, came in his place.

Ferguson and Don Andy dug the little grave, mother lined the tiny box with silver paper and gave Don Andy a black cloth to spread over it.

“Shall we ask the priest, mother?” he asked.

“Why no, indeed!” returned mother; “He would take it as an insult.”

“He is a good sport,” said Don Andy. “And he could do all this far better than we can.”

Ferguson laughed. Ferguson always laughed at everything that Don Andy said; but when Ferguson got angry he shouted “Hoot” in such a way that it became a real snort of contempt.

At half past two we all met at Mrs. Dean’s and there was a good gang of us.

Nancy Lou came along with us; she had a great black bow tied around her neck, and it hung down and bothered her and seemed to make her angry as well.

It took quite a while to get started, and Oh! If there had only been kodaks in those old days!

The boys put Ring Ding into the little box, put the covers on a spread the black cloth over it. The children had brought flowers, lots of beautiful roses, and we piled them onto the little box.

Ferguson and my brother pulled the little cart, next came Olive Jane, walking along behind the card, and holding high the celluloid cross; and all the others, as Don Andy told it in after years; “Came two by two, and last of all came Nancy Lou.”

When we passed the priest’s house he made the sign of the cross.

Some young men driving past, held up their horses, and all took off their hats.

“A funeral by the wayside!” exclaimed the young driver. “The Lord giveth and taketh away! Who is dead?” he asked, addressing himself to Don Andy.

“Just a little dog,” said my brother.

“All this for a dog!” cried the young man. “Casket and flowers, black cloth and cross, and one fair mourner, the followers also, and the hearse!” pointing to Don Andy’s cart. “Why dam it all!” he exclaimed, standing up in the buggy and slapping his whip around, “ If I should die tomorrow or any other old time, who would make such a spread for me; and just keep that goat away from my horses, will you?” he said to Don Andy, “or they will make mince meat of her.”

“No,” said my brother, “don’t you worry a little bit. If your horses get any where near my goat you will have to pick up the pieces and she will make them plenty had to find!”

“What is the matter with him?” asked Ferguson.

“He is in his cups,’ said Don Andy, with a wise look. “He is in his cups, and that is all.” And then he called, “Come on, now, get a move on you.”

So we passed on, and as we turned in at father’s big gate, mother came out and walked with us, and way in the back yard among the roses, Don Andy had the little grave ready. The boys drew the little cart up beside it and halted. (Ever after that day, Don Andy’s little cart went by the name the young driver had given it, “The Hearse.”)

When we were there, Don Andy took off the cloth and cover, and laid the roses in a pile on the ground. “Now,” said he, “If any one wants to look at Ring Ding, he much look now, for it is the last time that any of us will get a squint at him.” Ferguson laughed.

“Ferguson,” said mother, “sing something.”

“What shall I sing?’ he asked.

“Oh,” said mother, “ I often hear you singing with your mother. Sing some of the songs that you sing with her.”

Ferguson’s mother was a beautiful singer and sang each Sunday morning service. She never sat in the choir, but arose and sang with the rest of the congregation. As many people went to church to hear Mrs. Ferguson sing as to hear what the preacher had to say, and her young son was always by her side and sang with her. So at the grave of a dear little dog, Ferguson sang. It is more that sixty years ago, and I was just a little child, but as he sang tears came to my eyes and a lump in my throat. What Ferguson Sang

“Who daily treads the path of duty , And heeds its careful prompting, day by day, His eyes shall see the King in all his beauty, He shall behold that land so far away.”

“Ferguson,” said mother, “That was beautiful.”

Then Olive Jane recited a little verse about: “A dear little face missed day by day from its accustomed place. One little dog in heaven!” and that made Ferguson laugh. Then Don Andy gave us something about: “We put him away from the ones that he loved, and the sound of his bark is still.”

“Now, Don Andy,” said mother.

Then Ferguson and Don Andy put the cords under the little box. Mother picked up three large, beautiful roses, and laid them in with Ring Ding, the boys put the cover on and lowered him down.

“Ashes to ashes,’ said my brother, with a grin, dropping in a shovelful of dirt.

“Dirt and dirt,” said Ferguson, dropping in another shovelful.

“Ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt,” until the little grave was filled and smoothed over. Then Don Andy set up the wooden cross, first writing upon it with his pencil, “Here lies Ring Ding.” Then Olive hung on “Semper Fidelis,” then we all wended our homeward ways, and left Ring Ding among the roses.

“Not one of you children will ever forget this day,” said mother.

As we came into the yard at home the little gate clicked to and shut Nancy Lou out. The way that she went after that gate made the children shout with glee, each time she butted, head down and black bow flying, was surely come circus. It was a large day with Nancy Lou in at the finish, and as mother had said, not one of us could ever forget it!

That old playmate of ours is gone, where all good goats must go, She used to swing herself about and dance upon her toe:

She danced upon her toes with looks and ways so queer!

And we who loved her well in those old days

Still hold her memory dear.

On, Nancy Lou! Oh Nancy Lou!

My mind oft travels back to you!

You went to sleep long years ago, On the blue hills of Baraboo.

She was just a goat, “a sarcastic shabby little goat, which played with the children about the streets of Baraboo more than sixty years ago, and after all these years I can still see the struggling old streets as they looked in my childhood with Nancy Lou nibbling grass by the roadside, patiently waiting the return of the school children whom in her queer goat fashion she loved so dearly. Her bones rotted long ago up in

the hills, but she left a son who made his home at the livery stables, and chewed tobacco and whipped every dog in town worth whipping and some of its people! Rastus, we children called him.

From A. O. Barton

A.O. Barton, Madison, writes that he is greatly interested in the story about the “House at the Foot of the Hill.” He hopes to see many articles from the pen of Mrs. Anderson. Mr. Barton continues:

“I also developed an interest when I saw a reference to an old Devil’s Lake steamer named Capitola for I presume I have a picture of it. I am enclosing it. This picture was made about 1875, possibly before, by Andrew L. Dahl, landscape photographer of De Forest, Wis. I wonder why the steamer was named Capitola. Mrs. E.D. E. N. Southworth, a former Wisconsin woman, by the way, who wrote gushing romances a half century ago, named one of her stories ‘Capitola.’ Couth there be any connection between the story and the boat? I have often been at a lovely little frame cottage at Georgetown, Wash., overlooking the blue hills of Virginia, amid which she made some of her best tales. She passed on quite a while ago.”

Editors Note: The picture sent by Mr. Barton has been shown to a number of persons and they all declare that it is of the Miniwakan, a boat which was on the lake for many years.

Mrs. E. N. Marsh has an old scrapbook made by her husband and in this there is a newspaper clipping which says that Samuel Harley “ has just put on a very fine little steamboat, the “Capitola” from Fourth Lake, Madison, which makes regular trips around the lake every two hours.

Mr. Marsh has written in the scrapbook that the first steamboat at Devil’s Lake was launched August 5,1869, was steamed up on the sixth, and made three trips. From the above it would appear that in the early days there were two steamboats on Devil’s Lake.

There is also another entry to the scrapbook which says that Mr. Marsh commenced building the Miniwakan House at Devil’s lake, Sept. 1, 1866. The Miniwakan house afterwards became the Cliff House, a popular hotel at the lake for many years. From the above it will be seen that Mr. Marsh was the first landlord and Mr. Harley was the second.

Thursday April 15,1926

PART VI Days of ‘61

Home they brought my soldier dead, neither cross nor sword had he. With my roses on his breast, came my soldier back to me.

When the war of ’61 with its golden sunlight lay upon the land, a summer so bright, so glorious with its beauty of perfume and song, that war with all its horrors seemed very far away.

When the call of “To arms” came a great wave of excitement swept over the little town down among the hills, and no where was the call answered more quickly than in Baraboo.

With my playmates I followed the troops about as they drilled for war; those boys who later made such a gallant fight for liberty. They were nearly all volunteers, they went gladly, not because they did not fear death, not because they wished to die, but because they did not wish the Union to perish.

They loved the flag, the red, the white and the blue emblem of our country, beautiful anywhere when seen among the emblems of other nations of the earth, but nowhere so beautiful, so the soldiers say, as when seen upon the field of battle. It stands for the protection of hour homes, our nation and our liberty. It stands for freedom – the star spangled banner.

Mother gave Olive Jane and me each a package to give to the soldiers, the day that they marched away. It did not make any difference which one, they were all poor boys, she said; and so when the day came we were there with our gifts.

Olive Jane gave her package away at once, and when I asked her to whom she gave it, she said: “I don’t know, I didn’t look at him”, while I ran miles, it seemed to me, trying to find the one that I wanted to give mine to.

Olive Jane came and said to me, “Give your package to some one. They will march away soon now. I’ll tell mother.”

“I don’t care if you do, “ I answered. “I’m looking for the right soldier, and I haven’t found him yet.” (Olive Jane always said if things were not to her liking, “I’ll tell mother.”)

Well, after a long weary search I found my soldier standing alone by some boxes. I went over to where he was. “I have been looking for you every where.” I told him; “and I thought that I never would find you.”

He turned an astonished face toward me. “You were looking for me,” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” said I, “and I have a package for you and I want to tell you ‘Goodbye’ and to tell you that I hope you will come back safe!”

“Did you think that you knew me?” he asked.

“No sir.’

“Well, how did you come to pass up all the others and bring this to me?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Funny,” he said.

Then we sat down on a box while I opened the little leather case and showed him the six fine linen handkerchiefs, beautifully hemstitched and laundered, that mother had made for him. There were also needles and pins and other useful little articles, and the package of lint. I told him how my mother had scraped that lint from soft white cloth with a knife. (They did not have absorbent cotton in those days.) While we sat there some girls came by and one of them said to him, “ I thought you told me, Harley, that you had no other sweetheart but me.”

“Well, that was right; I didn’t have then!”

He wrote my name on a card and put it in the little case. “Can you write?” he asked.

“Not very well,” I told him.

“I’ll write you a letter after I get down south, and when I come home you be sure to meet me. Will you come to welcome me home?”

“I will,” I promised. Then we said “Goodbye.”

Well, that letter never came, but he came and I was there to meet him.

I was there to meet him, but alas! he did not know it. And he is sleeping with my roses in his hands.

At the Judgment Day I’ll greet him, in that other land I’ll meet him, My soldier lad of sixty years ago.

I remember that when the hour of parting came how wives clung to their husbands and aged white-haired mothers wept over their sons, and fathers said “Goodbye” by clasped hands and eyes averted. Blessings followed them, prayers went with them. They were the flower of our state and as such all hears were with them, weal or woe.

All at once, loud and clear, like the crack of a whip upon the air came the order to “Fall in”. Then followed “Roll call” and at last came the final command: “Right face in columns of four, to the left, March”. And those brave boys turned and swung down the Noyes hill and shook the dust of old Baraboo from their feet: some of them forever.

While the drums were still beating, flags waving and soldiers marching my brother Charles was born in the House at the Foot of the Hill.

Thursday April 29,1926

(to be continued)

PART VII

An Old War Call

Baraboo, August 12, 1862 CITZENS OF SAUK COUNTY TURN OUT!

AND HEAR THE REASONS ASSIGNED WHY YOU SHOULD DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY, ITS CONDSTITUTION AND LAWS? NOW ASSAILED BY TRAITORS.

LET IT NOT BE SAID THAT SAUK HAD TO RESORT TO DRAFT!

SO COME AS THE WINDS COME WHEN TALL OAKS ARE BENDED. COME AS THE WAVES COME WHEN WAVES ARE STRANDED.

(MANY CITIZENS)

“Hell’s a poppin’, Electa!” cried my Uncle John. “Hell’s just naturally a poppin’ down south, and I’m going.”

“Oh, John!” exclaimed my mother anxiously; “Don’t go unless you have to, keep out of it if you can.”

“Keep out of NOTHING!” retorted Uncle John. “ I’m just itchin’ to mix with those Johnnie’s! I don’t run from any fight. I’M GOING!”

Uncle John was my mother’s bachelor brother and he made his home with us. He was the joy of the children’s lives. He often went with us on our rambles and drives and forgot his age and rheumatism; wrestled, danced and sang and was just a “kid” with the rest of us. He made the gardens, cared for the ponies, milked the cow, fed the chickens and sawed the wood; and it was no small job to saw hard maple and oak for two large heaters and a cook stove.

After he went south, the wood sawing fell to Don Andy, and it took a great many canings to make him. He used to cry; yes, and swear too, when he thought that mother could not hear him, but the priest who lived across the street often did, but the old man was not a “squealer!” He used to sit on his porch and watch Don Andy – chuckle and enjoy himself immensely; seemed to think it a good joke.

“It is strenuous work.” He said to Don Andy once; “But it is no harder than fighting!”

Aunt Lucy was mother’s maiden sister. She was the moneyed one of the family and came and went as she pleased, and when she came we all were to wait on her. She just hated children, she used to look at Don Andy over her gold rimmed glasses and say;” If that boy belonged to ME instead of Electa, I would skin him alive!” and to me; “if you go on the way that you are going now, you will end in a mad house.” I used to wander what a mad house was like any how, and if it was as bad as Aunt Lucy let on. But she was a good Christian, she belonged to the church, paid her dues regularly, helped the preacher and above all was thankful to God that she was not like other people.

Uncle John was never known to go to church, he chewed tobacco and often swore, but he would give his last cent to relieve one of his fellows.

“Oh John, don’t go,” said mother and she cried. John was her favorite brother, never very strong, and he was well along in his forties.

“John,” said Aunt Lucy, sitting there on the porch, looking like an old picture in her silk and old lace. (mother, too, in her pretty gingham) “John, you have lived a “heatern “ life, but I do wish that before you go down south, you would make your peace with the Lord.”

“The Lord,” asked Uncle John: “ What is he, Lucy?”

Aunt Lucy went home the next day, and as the stage rolled down the street carrying her away, Uncle John sang: “And there she goes, my lovely Sophier.”

Those were stirring times! Every town was a recruiting station and every one was giving up friends and loved ones and more soldiers were going every day.

An Old War Call

There was much entertaining and getting up plays for the soldiers. There was one community entertainment held at the old court house at which the school, Sunday schools, lodges and every one lent a hand.

Mr. Redfield, the Superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday school had told the children of his school that if any of their people had ever taken part in the war or had done any deed of bravery they were to come upon the platform and tell it to the people that night; so when Olive Jane came home, telling of Mr. Redfield’s bequest, mother go out the record of her grandmother Sperry’s life and death; and the part that she had taken in the War of the Revolution. Olive Jane committed it to memory.

Mother was very proud of her grandmother; all the family were, and even today, and so far down the line a niece of mine declares he to have been the most picturesque character in the family. (She was Holland Dutch and her maiden name was Pauline Van Erder.)

When the night came the great building was crowded. Mr. Redfield walked with Olive Jane to the platform and she stood alone under the flags, facing the crowd. She looked very sweet in the pretty white dress that mother had made for her, and her lovely long curls fell around her shoulders.

“Olive Jane;” said Mr. Redfield, “is going to tell about her great grandmother, and the part that she took in the Revolutionary War.”

She looked down at the sea of faces before her, she picked at her skirt with trembling fingers, then she looked to see if Mr. Redfield was any where near, and then began.

“Her name;” she said, “was Polly Sperry and she was sick a long time with many different kinds of sickness, and she died at Kirkland, Ohio, in the ninety-first year of her age. She was the wife of Captain Elisha Speery, a hero of the Revolution. She was one of the almost helpless creatures who were driven from New York by Lord Howe. She was at the capture of Burgoyne and assisted the suffering Americans on that memorable day. He motto through life was

“My God and his cause, my country and her laws”

As Olive Jane came down, the drums beat low for a moment and finished with a loud crash. With her curls floating out behind her she ran to her seat beside father.

We were not so gay after Uncle John left us, we missed him so, he had been with us so long. We children were always wondering when he would come back.

He was a mounted artilleryman and Don Andy thought it must be a great thing to have a good horse under you and a sharp sword to slash people with if they got in your way.

We used to sit on the porch in the evenings with father and mother. Nearly always there were friends or neighbors with us, listening to the music of fife and drum and the sharp command of officers who were getting their men into shape for war; and often as we sat there the twilight deepened, the little winds began to whisper through the rose scented silence of the old garden, stirring the hanging of white at the open windows, and seeming to bring peace to our heavy hearts.

PART VIII

THANKSGIVING – Don Andy and John Clark

The day that Don Andy loved best was Thanksgiving Day, with its big turkey dinner, and he used to recite a verse or two sometimes when mother was baking and getting things ready for that day. Something about:

“How dear to our hearts is the Thanksgiving dinner. As fond recollection presents it to view! When father’d come home from the raffle a winner And bring along with him a gobbler or two!

Oh! Then in the kitchen was hurry and bustle, Sis weeping at having the onions to shell, And mother just making the rest of us hustle

To help with the dinner that filled us so well.

Yum, yum! What a dinner! The gorgeous old dinner, The turk and ‘punk’ dinner, that filled us so well!”

Mother always allowed Don Andy to invite a boy friend to have dinner with him on that day, and this was the way he sent out his bids: “To a turk and punk dinner!”

He always had so many boy friends, they hung about the House at the Foot of the Hill like so many fliers. He was a wholesome social boy, who loved the woods and fields; and the rabbit and squirrel traps that he owned and stood guard over in the old Crawford woods were to numerous to mention.

His best boy friend was John Clark the shoemaker’s son, and theirs was a friendship that endured while life lasted, and perhaps beyond (Who knows?)

They were never long apart, and they were never together but they fought. John used to come over to the House at the Foot of the Hill every two or three weeks, for years to stay all night with Don Andy, and always before they blew out their candles each took what they called “a whack” at the punching bag that hung in Don Andy’s room, with Henen looking on. One could hear them talking far into the night. They were just as different in looks as two boys possibly could be. I can see them now as they looked during those years in Baraboo. Don Andy with his quick alert smile, snapping lack eyes and his beautiful white teeth. He was dark but pale. He had a quick eager way of speaking and he used his hands at these times more than was common among the youngster of Baraboo. He was slim, muscular, wiry and quick.

John was a strong well built boy, broad of shoulder, and short, slow of speech and motion; he was fair with blue eyes, and his laugh made others laugh with him. But slow as he was he could fight and fight well if need be. He was of English ancestry, and like and Englishman he fought, hung on, and never gave up.

They were two lovable boys, whom every one liked, and the first real tiff that they had was a very serious affair. No one except themselves really knew what it was all about and they never told.

The two boys with many others, belonged to what was known in those days as the “Gang”; something like the Boy Scouts of today. They were sworn in by a strong vow never to go back on the “Gang” nor to reveal any of its secrets. “Close silence” was the “Gangs” motto.

PART IX

THE STORY OF THE WINE PARTY ON NEW YEAR’S DAY IN OLDER BARABOO

My father loved New Year’s Day best, and always liked to keep it as his people had, with feasting, song, story and dance; and it was on those never to be forgotten New Year’s eves that he used to dance “Pargate’ for us children (such fun!) He was getting way along in years before he cut out “Pargate.”

Mother, like many other Baraboo mothers, kept open house New Year’s Day. Ffor those who called she always had sandwiches, little cakes and wine, but there got to be so many young men callers that mother began to wonder if the wine had anything to do with those calls, so they met to talk things over.

“Just a thimble full really could not harm them, could it?” asked mother, anxiously.

“Well;” said a wise old mother, who had raised three sons and understood them better, “If we cut out the wine and give them chocolate we can tell; and chocolate is good enough for any one.”

So when New Year’s Day came again, work had gone out, some way, some how, that there was to be chocolate instead of wine. Only four young me callers! Imagine their surprise when mother set them down at a small table and gave them hot chocolate.

One chap held up his cup and looked into it.

“What happened to the wine?” he asked.

“Wine is a mocker,” answered mother.

“Will wine come back,” asked another youth.

“Is that a threat?” she inquired; “Does that mean that you won’t come back until the wine does.”

They went away singing a parody on the old English drinking song, which they composed for the occasion.

“For we were roaring drunk last night and drunk the night before’

But the way things look this New Years Day, we won’t be drunk any more!”

Mother looked after them as they went down the street. “I would not have thought it of them,” she said. “They won’t get any wine here ever again.” And they never did; and that was what put wine upon the blink, once upon a time in old Baraboo, and started the chocolate fad!

(To Be Continued)

LETTER FROM CANADA

Having received a package of the Baraboo Weekly News, we eagerly opened them, soon noticed some marked articles and proceeded to read them. I did not read fart in the one entitled “The House at the Foot of the Hill” before I became deeply interested because my thoughts went back to the days when I, too, in company with other children, including the writer, played at times in and around this same house, the picture which in your paper is so like that which my memory recalls.

How sweet to ponder over the past! Would to God we could be taken back to that sacred past and from there start anew in life!

While the house mentioned in your paper is of much interest to me, there was another house about thirty rods south of “The House at the Foot of the Hill”. It was a humble home, but especially dear to me, because many of my childhood days were spent there. There is where my dear sister, Mrs. John Degan, was born, and where our kind mother spent many happy days caring for a caressing her children but dear mother was called away to that better home after a short life, leaving behind her three children Anna, Willie and Nellie. How hard good father toiled to provide for us, and he too, has been resting for many years.

And the good people living around us in those days, - where are they? There were the Jenkins, the Lancasters, the Piersons and the Hudsons. What kind neighbors we had! They did so much to make us happy as well as other children in general.

Most of the things mentioned by Mrs. Anderson in the papers I have seen – are familiar to me. She surely has the gift of a high class writer and I judge she still retains the high qualities of companionship she possessed on the sacred playgrounds of olden days.

Mr. Wm. O’ Connell Neptune, Saskatchewan, Canada

To Charles Wing

A letter from Mrs. Anderson to Charles Wing, Baraboo, among other things says that her father and mother died long ago and are sleeping in a cemetery at Minneapolis; by their side sleeps her sister, Olive Jane.

Don died nine years ago and is buried at North Freedom in sight of his old home, the old Major Williams farm at Ableman. Mrs. Anderson says she is almost the last of the LaMoreaux family.

Married in Historic House

I may be interesting to readers of the News to know that Mr. and Mrs. William Haseltine, who reside a few miles southwest of Baraboo, were married in the House at the Foot of the Hill, December 3, 1868. The bride was Miss Myra Hoag, sister of the late Edwin M. Hoag of Baraboo. The ceremony was performed by Rev. W. B. Haseltine who was then a Methodist minister at Black River Falls. The bride and Bridegroom returned home with the minister, this being their wedding journey. Mrs. Alfred Rich, Second Avenue, Baraboo is a sister, and Daniel Haseltine, Viola, is a brother of W.B. Haseltine who resides near this city. In case there are other human interest events concerning the old house The News will be glad to receive them.

Editor’s Note – Mrs. Anderson has written a letter telling about the LaMoreaux family. This will appear at the close of the series. She appreciates all the letters she is receiving but may not be able to answer all except in a general way at the close of the series.

Thursday May 6, 1926

PART X

WHO COMETH ? AN ANGEL’S VISIT

“Out of the bosom of the air, over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the road and fields forsaken, silent and soft and slow, All night had descended the snow”

One winter, somewhere in the 60’sm we children had planned a sleigh ride for the coming Saturday, out on the Portage road, and afterwards a little evening frolic at the home of a friend, but Friday as we came home from school it began to snow and blow and then turned into a regular sleet and snow story of the very worst king; so of course all thoughts of the sleigh ride were abandoned. We were all very much disappointed and we railed at each other and found so much fault that it must have been a trying day for mother.

About a week before, she had caught us laughing at a poor, ragged old man, who was begging for old clothes in our neighborhood. She had taken us in hand and given us a good talking to and had ended by telling up that he might be and angel in disguise. She told us that the Bible said something about entertaining angels unaware. We had not thought much about it at the time, but on that snowy Saturday afternoon, when there were no teams passing and no one to be seen in the streets and the snow coming down harder all the time, Olive Jane kept bringing up the subject.

Uncle John made the remark that no one but the devil himself could get about in such weather, and wondered how my father was going to get home from the mill that evening.

Olive Jane stated in again – “We might not know that they were angels when they came for they would come in disguise, and they would find out how you swear when mother don’t hear you,” she said to Don Andy.

“Listen to that rigmorole,” retorted my brother. “She’s crazy in her head!”

“I’m not!” cried Olive Jane. “It’s you who are crazy.”

“You are both crazy,” declared Uncle John. “Because the first signs of insanity in a person is that they always notice it in some one else.”

That made the others sit up and laugh, and broke up the argument.

“It is a terrible storm,” said mother, looking out of the window.

“It comes from all directions, and any one could freeze without knowing it,” and then she began worrying about father.

And later as we all sat around the great heater, mother busy with the week’s mending and Aunt Lucy’s knitting needles clicking, all at once we heard sleigh bells, distant aft first, but coming nearer all the while, musical little bells and a queer sounding as well.

“An Angel is coming!” exclaimed my sister.

We crowded each other at the window; and then right into our yard, through father’s big gate which was standing open, there came the queerest little turnout that we had ever seen! Two big black Newfoundland dogs, drawing a wonderful little sleigh! Beautiful dogs, they were; large, shaggy and strong. On old man was driving.

My mother and Uncle John went out to meet him.

When the man stepped out of the sleigh he carried in his hands a small tin box. He asked my mother if she would keep him for the night. The roads were beginning to get blacked, he said, and his dogs were tired and he himself was nearly frozen.

Mother told him to put the dogs in the barn and then come in.

Don Andy unhitched the dogs and afterwards gave them a great pan of bones, and then they lay down in father’s warm barn in thankful comfort.

When father came home he made the stranger welcome in his own pleasant way, and told him that he much stay with us until the storm was over, and the roads open again; and the old man seemed to be glad to be with us.

My father neither asked who he was or where he came from, and we were not allowed to either. Olive Jane hung about and watched his every move, and sometimes mother had to speak to her and tell her to go and sit down.

Aunt Lucy scolded about mother taking in strange people in that way. “Why couldn’t he just as well have gone to some other place in the neighborhood? What brought him right here to this house, anyway?” she asked.

“The dogs brought him here, Lucy,” laughed mother. “The big gate was open and they shot right through with him; he couldn’t very well help coming. He is all right though, Lucy.” She said, reassuringly.

“Electra,” said Aunt Lucy, you will take in one tramp too many some of these days; one who will rob you of everything worth taking and afterwards will cut all of our throats!”

Don Andy ran out of doors, laughing.

“Where is Don Andy?” asked my sister a little later.

“Gone to confession ,” said Uncle John, “I just saw him wading through the snow, over to the priest’s house.”

“Be you people catholic?” asked the stranger.

Aunt Lucy answered for the family with a snort of contempt, “I should say not!”

When the others were busy talking, seated around the fire in the sitting room, Olive Jane and I got into our wraps and started out to find Don Andy. We waded through the snow over to Father Ryan’s house.

It was the worst storm! We could hardly make our way across, for the wind blew us in every direction. It pounded us down into the drifts. My sister fought the way for both of us. Hard as it was we never thought of turning back. Olive Jane was terrible excited.

When we reached the priest’s house we bolted right in without knocking; the door got away from us and banged against the wall; the wind blew the snow into the house in great clouds, we shouted for help. “Come and help us, some one; for we can’t hold the door!” After a hard battle, with Father Ryan’s help, we closed the door.

“Father Ryan,’ said my sister, shaking the snow from our garments, “Can you excuse us for banging your door and forgetting to knock?” A merry look crossed the old man’s face, and he said that he could.

A friend of the priest sat over in a corner, and at a table Don Andy sat looking over some bird books.

A homey, cozy room was the priest’s study. The wall paper with its warm colors matched the soft wool carpet upon the floor, there were books everywhere; a few easy chairs, a wide roomy old couch, the bright fire, and over all that dark, storm afternoon, the flickering candle light. I thought it beautiful.

The frail, little old lady who kept the priest’s house was related to him. She was faithful and an excellent housekeeper; a find mender of clothes; she was careful, saving and considerate, and all the children on our street loved her.

She led me to the fire and fussed over me.

“It’s a nice room, Mary housekeeper,” said I. Its like a beautiful story the teacher read to us, about something all glittering and warm.

The priest turned and looked at me.

“She is talking foolish, now,” said my sister. “She talks foolish lots, sometimes in the night she awakens us and talks those foolish things. “

“Colleen,” said the priest, “Don’t you like this room?”

“Oh, it’s a good enough room,” answered Olive Jane.

“How unlike two sisters can be, Mary,” said the priest to this housekeeper. He called her Mary.

I called her Mary Housekeeper.

“Call her Mrs. McGuire,” he said to me once. “That is her name, child.”

After that I called her “Mary Housekeeper Mrs. McGuire.”

“If you have a middle name, Mary, don’t tell her,” laughed the priest; “or she will add that on too.”

“Don Andy!” exclaimed my sister, after giving the man in the corner a sharp look. “Don Andy, listen; I believe that the man who came to our house today with those dogs is an angel in disguise. Do you think that he could be?”

My brother straightened up and smoothed back his shining black hair; he looked at her and grinned. “Sure, he could be,” he said. “It is easy to be an angel; all that you have to do is to behave yourself. We’ll all be angels when we die, anyhow, Oh, sure,” said he, with a wave of his hands. “He’s an angel, all right.”

“Mother said that people often entertain angels unawares,” said Olive Jane. “ And I just believe that he is one.”

“Mother was just stringing us,” said the graceless youngster, Don Andy. ‘She didn’t believe it herself. She just said that he might be one. This angel stuff,” said he, “ is all bosh; it don’t pan out.”

“What do you think is in the little tin box that he carries with him; and is so careful about?” asked Olive Jane.

“Oh, that,” returned Don Andy returned Don Andy, with a quick jerk of his hands and a broad grin,” is where he keeps his gold crown.”

The man in the corner laughed.

Father Ryan looked at Don Andy with somber eyes, “Larry, “ he said, “ if there is a lad in this town that I pray for it is you.” Larry grinned.

“Father Ryan,” said my sister, standing straight and slim before him. “Could that man be an angel, do you think?”

The priest did not answer for a moment; he looked out at the snowy streets, then at his friend in the corner, slowly he turned in his swing chair and smiled at us.

“Well now,” he said slowly; “Faith, we don’t any of us know for sure that he isn’t.”

That settled it.

We got into our wraps again; Mary Housekeeper, Mrs. McGuire, pinned my coat collar close up around my neck, and after giving my hands a soft pat, she pulled on my mittens.

“Now, Mary be with you;” she said. “You will get home all right, Mary willing.”

“What Mary?” I asked. “Mary who?”

“Mary, the mother of Christ.” She answered, softly.

Don Andy went home with us, we hanging on to him.

Father Ryan called a cheery ”Goodnight” to us; then reached out a strong hand and closed the door.

At home again, we sat with the others about the great heater and listened to the wind blowing had, the storm shook the old house, the sleet and snow beet against the window pane, but inside all the rooms were warm and comfortable and those were the days too, when there were no storm doors and windows; and while the great storm roared and pounded about the old house the stranger sang.

“And He’s fitting up a mansion, That eternally shall stand, For my stay will not be transient In that Holy, Happy Land.”

He had a nice voice for a man of his years; and after the first verse my Aunt Lucy joined in and sang with him.

“On the other side of Jordan, In the sweet fields of Eden Where the Tree of Life is blooming There is rest for me.”

I was just a little girl, curled up by the warm fire, listening to the stranger sing, and hearing the roar of the elements. All things seemed to grow quiet and fade away; then a voice that sounded from far off, cried; “ Oh, catch her, some one!” and my father caught me just as I was slipping out of my chair; and he carried me up to my room, and mother put me to bed. I never knew a thing until morning and then the storm was over.

The stranger was with us for a whole week, and when the roads were open and the sleighing was good again, he left us.

We never really knew whom he was or where he came from. No one asked and he never told us. Mother worried about him. “You are too old to be traveling about alone in the cold, with just those dogs,” she told him. “What if you were caught out in a bad storm and couldn’t get anywhere? Why you would freeze to death!” she exclaimed. “Have you no children to care for you, no one?”

“No lady,” he answered. “ I haven’t and I’m quite as well off as though I had ten; for it is harder for ten children to take care of one parent than it is for one parent to take care of ten children,” and my mother had to admit that it was often too true.

She packed him a small box of food to take with him on the road; in it she put doughnuts, gingerbread, brown bread and butter, a cold beef roast, and also a chunk of father’s famous dried beef. Along with all this was a sack of bones and scraps for the dogs.

My father left a dollar bill, and mother gave it to him as he was leaving. Uncle John gave him another dollar and invited him to stay until spring

The morning that he left us was a nice sunny one.

After breakfast, the stranger reached upon a shelf and brought down the battered, rusty tin box.

My sister’s eyes looked like good sized saucers, she expected to see a wonderful gold crown, set with diamonds and pearls; instead he took from it a little machine and fastened it onto the table, then he reached into the box again and drew forth a small thin piece of brass about two inches long.

“What is your Christian name?” he asked mother.

“Electa,” she answered.

He then sat down at the table and with that little machine, cut a wreath all around the little brass plate and inside the wreath in lovely letters, he cut my mother’s name.

ELECTA

Then he reached into the box again and brought out a bottle of indelible ink and a small brush and handed them to my mother.

“To mark ling with,” said he, “and a poor gift after all that you have done for me.”

But mother was delighted with it and kept it always, and is still in the family, for I held it in my hands a few years ago, and read through tear dimmed eyes, that name so dear, “Electa.”

Don Andy on the way to school, walked with the stranger through the town, out on the Portage road and there he left him.

A few days after, a letter came for father, with a Portage postmark which my father opened and read aloud.

“My Friends, Arrived at Portage at 3:10 p.m. yesterday. Am well; dogs feeling fine.

I shall not soon forget your kindness to the stranger. Addison Crarey”

We never heard of him again.

“Like ships that pass in the night, and hail each other in passing,” said father when mother showed him the little brass plate and told him that the stranger had gone.

Aunt Lucy took my father in hand for giving the stranger money.

“Why,” said she, “You don’t know that he was deserving,” and I have always been proud of him for his answer: “I shall not try to find out whether he was or not,” said my daddy, “He might have died of want while I was out looking him up, you know, Lucy.”

“He will be back,” said Aunt Lucy. “That kind always come back.” But she was mistaken; he never came back.

When the story got out that had believed the stranger to have been an angel in disguise, the others all teased Olive Jane about it, and she handed back to them the old priest’s words: “Well now, perhaps he was an angel, Faith! You don’t any of you know for sure that he wasn’t one do you?”

It was a long time before she would admit that perhaps he might not have been.

I would like to ask the young people of the family for whom I have written this true little story –“What is your opinion of the stranger?” What he what my sister thought him, - and angel in disguise? Did she call him to us through the storm and darkness by her faith, or was Don Andy right when he said, “Aw, he’s just a poor old duffer, out to make a living and when you listen to him talk, why, you just have to hand it out to him for being an all right kind of old guy.”

Now, what are your conclusions, I ask you of a later generation, especially you songs and daughters of Don Andy –Was he right?

(To Be Continued)

Thursday May 13, 1926

PART XI JOHN DUCKINS

A familiar figure upon the streets of Baraboo in my young days, and one, who was a great favorite with the children was John Duckins.

He was an interesting old colored man who sang the plantation songs; and once in a long time danced a “walk round” for us.

He owned a fine span of ponies and a little buckboard; and often carried passengers to the Dells, to the lake, to the Pewitt’s nest and other places of interest around Baraboo.

He plowed my father’s garden with those little ponies, for years. While working he was just a very common looking old darky who did not believe in cheating his employer, but gave faithful service and was always on time; but when driving, he sat in a straight and dignified manner, on the front seat and the way that he handled the ribbons was a joy to behold!

The children of the town were crazy to ride in that little buckboard. No fine carriage or charlot of old could compare with that smooth rolling little buckboard when Duckins drove!

If he approved of our fathers and mother; knew them to be good respectable people of the town, he would often invite us to take a ride with him.

He was musical, too; he sang the old Southern melodies and often accompanied himself on the organ in a very creditable manner.

One morning while working for my father in the basement of the house, he went up to the kitchen to speak to mother about the work; not finding her there he went on into the parlor.

When mother came into the room he stood looking down at the piano.

“Take a seat, Duckins,” said mother.

“Excuse me, Misus;” said he. “Would you object to a colored man techin the keys ever so lightly?”

“Why no, indeed,” answered mother, with a smile.

He sat down and played several old songs. “Why, John;” exclaimed mother as he arose to go; “I did not know that you were musical; you have given us a real treat!”

Once each summer he gathered up a small crowd of boys and girls, little and bid, and drove out to the lake where we spent one long, golden day under his watchful eyes.

Each mother as she came out with her little flock and lunch basket, asked the same favor of Duckins, “Now John, you will look after the children, won’t you? You won’t let them go out in the boats unless you are with them, will you?” or “Oh, Duckins don’t let anything happen to the children !” and also invariable he gave each mother the same patient answer; “Ise lookin’ after dese yere childuns, missus; nothing gwine to happen while Ise along.”

We never mentioned color before Duckins, having been told by our parents that it was a misfortune that he was in no way to blame for and as we did not wish to hurt his feelings it was a tabooed subject; no mention of his color ever being referred to; but on one of our days at the lake, Duckins caught James – trying to get away all by himself in one of the boats.

“Come out of there, James,” he called. “Ise been told not to let any of youse chilons out in the boat alone.”

James was a sizeable boy, and he objected to being called one of the children.

“Aw, you know that I can row a boat all right, Duckins!” he exclaimed; “They just meant the small children. Cut it out, can’t you, Duckins?”

“Come right out of there, James, or I’ll fetch you out; Ise just ‘beyin orders. Ise go no time to palaver with you; come out of there, I tells youse!”

James used the paddle to spatter water on Duckins; but before James knew what was happening Duckins had him out of that boat and was leading him, kicking and striking to the shore.

“Take your back hands off me, you nigger!” yelled James, forgetting himself in his rage. “I don’t allow any black nigger to paw me!”

We children stood aghast, wide eyed with pity.

“Shame on you, James!” cried one of the older boys. “You should be made to apologize to Duckins; you ought to be thrashed!”

“Who’ll do it?” asked James with a grin.

Some one tried to get Jake Gollmar to do it.

“No!” said Jake; “He licked me last week and I ain’t going to tackle him again until I’m sure I can lick him.”

“Don’t wait too long, Jake,” jeered James. “I’m ready any time.”

Duckings stood looking on.

“I’ll do it!” cried Don Andy, throwing off his coat and hat. “I’ll try it any how!” and he went up to face James.

“James, “ said he. “Duckins knows that he is nigger just as we do; we all know that he is a nigger, but I’ll be darned,” said he shaking two small trembling fingers in James’ face; “If I’ll stand by and hear you twit him about it!”

They started to spar, but Duckins grabbed each boy by the arm and held them apart.

“They’s niggers among white folks jest the same as among blacks,” he said slowly, “and a white nigger is ten times worse nor a black nigger, James,” he continued politely. “Youse a white nigger.” James picked up his cap, pounded the sand from it and started for home. He walked all the way to town. For a long time afterwards the boys all called him the “white nigger!”

When we started out in the morning Duckins used to sing:

“Now we’s off for Devil’s Lake, before the break of day, Waking up the dicky birds, all along de way!”

In the evening when we started for home, Duckins always gave u the “once over” then he gathered up the ribbons and sang:

“Oh, the time has come when we mus’ go Oh, Daffy do you love me yet, Then play me up a tune on yuah ole banjo, On Daffy do you love me yet!”

Then we children all came in on the chorus: “Carry the news! Carry the news! For we all are coming; Carry the new! Carry the news! We’ll meet you by and bye!”

Duckins often told us how he ran away from “Ole Kaintuck.” “Ran lak a little black squirrel,” he used to say.

He loved Baraboo.

“Ise willin to live and die yere,” he said; and he did.

I had gone far afield when Duckins died, but I have been told that many people followed him to his last resting place.

“Mighty nice people,” he always called them. Peace to his ashes! **********************************

* JOHN DUCKINS *

* Born a slave *

* In Kentucky, died in *

* Baraboo, Wis. 1894 *

 Tho dusky was the garb he wore on earth

Up there where we are pledged by inner worth, God’s angels who no line of color know, Will clothe his soul in robes as white as snow.

Sophie Davis Henton

*******************************

After more than thirty years the inscription is somewhat dimmed but is plainly legible.

Thursday May 20, 1926

PART XII

JAKE AND MATILDA, THE SOJOURNERS

As I look back over the many years that have gone swinging so swiftly past since the days of our happy childhood in the old home among the hills, some seasons seem to stand out in my memory so much more distinctly than others, for instance, there was the summer the sojourners came to live on our street.

“Strangers in a strange town,’ said my mother. She told us to be nice to them for they seemed to need all the help and encouragement the people could give them. “The be a stranger in a strange place is not the pleasantest thing in the world,” said she, “and though they are not really Baraboo people and perhaps never will be, I do hope that people will be kind to them.”

They had wandered away from some little town up the road in search of work and liking the looks of Baraboo and hearing that work of all kinds was to be found here; they rented a small house on what is known as Eighth avenue. The little house that they lived in disappeared more than forty years ago.

They were German from Danzig. They had no children, but there came wandering with them into our town, sharing their love and hard luck, the finest, faithfulest Shepard dog ever named Botzel, and he made friends with us children at once.

The first time that I remember seeing Mrs. Stoltie, or Matilda as every one called her, was when she came one day to our house to see if mother could give her work; and liking her looks and pleasant motherly ways, and because she had no little girls of her own, we became great friends; in time I came to love Aunt Matilda, as she wished us to call her. She was always so pleased to have me come to her little house. She always found time to sit with me on the rickety old lounge and fuss with doll rags, and to tell me, in her funny English, about the dolls that she had when she was a little girls in German. She gave my dolls queer German names and made for them funny little German caps.

Jake, her husband, seemed to enjoy listening to Matilda and me. He loved children; the trouble was that he couldn’t understand our ways. The boys played all kinds of pranks about his place.

“Jake Stoltie will catch you fellows some night, pranking around his place and he’ll trump you good,’ said Uncle John. “You’ll have it coming to you so you needn;t squeal.”

“Jake Stoltie can’t see a darn thing after four o’clock and we don’t get there until it is dark,” retorted Ferguson.

But one night Jake came upon three of them tick-tacking his windows with a lot of others looking on. He pounded their heads together until they yelled loudly for help; and when he let them go he helped them along with a good swift kick, “G-d -,”growled Jake, “When you tattle my windows some more and then I give some more. Four o’clock, what? G – d-!”

Jake called tick-tacking, “Tattling,” and ever after there was a war to the knife between Jake and the boys.

“He is a darn mean cuss,” said Don Andy, “and he don’t care how much he hurts a feller!”

But I knew just how good Jake could be. I remembered the little sacks of hickory nut meats he was always saving for me, of plums and wild grapes and blackberries he hunted the old Baraboo woods for and shared with me, and once in a storm he had gathered me up under one arm and packed me like a great puppy over the wet muddy streets; the funny little German songs he sang while he rocked my dolls. I used to think when tired or not feeling well if Uncle Jake would just sing to me that I would get better right away; and once there came a day when nothing pleased me and I cried at everything and refused to be comforted.

“You look funny,” said mother. “Are you sick?”

“No, I’m not,” said I. “I just want to go up to Aunt Matilda’s.”

So mother put on my hat and helped me on with my coat, and let me go.

I had hard work getting there, perhaps I was sick, I didn’t know; something was the matter with me and I thought that when I get there I’ll get Uncle Jake to sing “Fraulein” and then I would be all right again.

“I don’t feel very well, Aunt Matilda,” said I, standing in the doorway. “And I want Uncle Jake to sing “Du Du” and “Fraulein.”

Jake stopped smoking and looked at me. “G-d,” said he “Dot little girl is sick!”

Matilda piled the pillows on the old lounge, and they laid me down.

“Sing ‘Fraulein’, Uncle Jake. “Sing.” And Uncle Jake rocked and sang: “Oh, mein fraulein she has been so very unkind. She goes mit Hans to Germany to live Und leaves poor Snaps behind!”

Over and over Jake sang it, keeping time with one great hand and foot.

“I don’t feel any better, Aunt Matilda,’ said I. “I want to go home!”

“G-d-,” said Jake who swore without knowing it. “I take dot leetle girl home!”

Mother ran out when she saw us coming, Jake leading and coaxing me along and I hanging on to him, and my dolls heads sticking out of Jake’s great pockets.

“What is it , Jake?” she called.

“Dot leetle girl is sick,” said he, “mit spots on her face, and maybe schmall pox, what?”

Aunt Lucy folder her work nicely and put it away in her work basket, she took off the glasses she had on, put on another pair and came and looked at me. “I think that it is measles, this time, Electa, and I’ll take care of her,” she said. :And Jake you had better send Dr. hall over when you go home.” Jake lit out; he was afraid that I had small pox.

When Dr. hall came Aunt Lucy had me all tucked up nicely in bed. He looked at me an laughed. “You did that purposely,” said he, “so as to get some one to wait on you. Some one of you youngsters are having something all the time. How is your daddy going to pay all those doctor bills; for I’m going to charge him like thunder!” declared Dr. Hall.

The sojourners lived long enough among us to become really Baraboo people and then journeyed on to Chicago where some of their own people lived; not liking it there Matilda got some one to write that they were coming home again to stay for good; but they never came. She died that spring and we never heard of poor old Jake again; he must, of course, have passed away long ago; I do not know when or where, but of one thing I am certain, if there is a heaven, Aunt Matilda is there; “But don’t you be too sure,” said Don Andy, years ago about where Jake went. “ He was a mean old cuss; they wouldn’t want him in Heaven.” But I who knew him best am just as sure that he is with her; it would not be Heaven, any where for either unless they were together.

I sometimes wonder is there is today any one living who remembers those old neighbors of ours, that charming German couple, the Stolties, sojourners.

(To Be Continued)

EDITORS NOTE Mrs. A. Rich of Baraboo made her home in the House at the Foot of the Hill when she was a student in the Baraboo Collegian Institute.

May 27, 1926

PART XIII WHAT BECAME OF FATHER’S DRIED BEEF

The very same summer that the sojourners came to live on our street, my sister, Olive Jane, got into trouble over my father’s dried beef.

As the summers began to fade end the weather grew cool, father began always the work of stocking up the house for the winter.

There were bins in his cellar for all kinds of vegetables; there were bins for apples, there were russetts in one bin and another for the “Famuse,” and the Ben Davis” and the Duchess,” and one bin of bright red apples, the very reddest ones that he could buy. Those were for us children; “For,” said father, “ a child will pass up those that are much better to get at the red ones – but yes, watch them!”

There were all kinds of good things always. There would be great jars of honey, there would be maple syrup and syrup for buckwheat cakes galore; and always a big jar of doughnuts, “For the children to fight over,” said mother.

“Oh, surely,’ agreed father.

Then the home-made sausage, and all kinds of dried fruit that came each year to mother from Ohio; and always for winter, the great cheese from Aunt Mary Geletts farm at Kirkland; and there in the cool little storeroom, a long row of father’s own brand of dried beef, that he smoked and dried with corn cobs in a barrel.

His dried beef and smoked hams were his own special care, and when they were all ready to hang he then divided and gave to his friends and neighbors; first to Prof. Hobart and his wife, to old Grandma Turner and Father Ryan and Mary “Housekeeper” and last came poor lame Dandy, the Winnebago Indian. “Heap dam good meat!” Dandy once told my father, “Indian he like.” And that was his way of thanking father.

“There is a lot of dried beef yet, Electa; so many pieces, I counted, and after all that I have given away,” father told my mother. “we have more foodstuff in this house than two families could possible eat!” and then he forgot all about it.

A few days later my mother noticed one empty nail but thinking that father had given the meat to some one, said nothing about it.

A week or so later, another empty nail, and still another. “Andrew,’ said she, ‘aren’t you giving the dried beef way rather fast; don’t you care to keep any of it for yourself?”

“I,” said my father, “ I haven’t given any away since I hung it up.”

“Well, there are three empty nails,” she told him, ‘ and I have not used any yet, and a pail of apples that I had sorted in the cellar, went in the same way; and buckwheat flour and beans were spilled all about where someone had taken them. Then too, great pieces are broken off the maple sugar cakes; some one is robbing us!” declared mother.

Father laughed. “Well,” said he, “ it wouldn’t take much of a detective to know who did that; a robber would have taken all; he wouldn’t have just broken off pieces. It is the children.”

But no, mother wouldn’t have it that way. “The children didn’t do I,” she said.

“Well, it is inside work,” said father. “I’ll bet anything that it is Don Andy; the gang may have a hang out somewhere and they are stealing food to stock up with.”

“No,” said mother. “Don Andy didn’t do it. He says he didn’t.”

“ I don’t care a cuss what he says; I believe that he did it all right,” said father. “You cut a good slice of ham and put it where they can find it easily, and then watch them.”

That same evening, mother caught Olive Jane sneaking out with the great slice of ham wrapped up in a paper; and she hit it behind her when she saw mother looking at her.

“Come here, Andrew,” called mother. “ I believe that we have caught the robber; look and see what she has in that paper.”

“Name of God,” exclaimed father as he tore upon the paper. “ So you are the robber.”

She never said a word, but with her looks she defied him.

He slammed her down on a chair and with the great thick slice of ham he clapped her twice across the face.

She looked up at him and smiled a sad little smile, and seemed to be seeing things far away.

Father was beside himself with rage; he didn’t know just what to do wither. He was prepared to believe that Don Andy might be the guilty one, but it maddened him to know that it was Olive Jane.

She looked at him and smiled a little smile (just as she smiled at us all, one beautiful Christmas morning many years afterwards; “Merry Christmas” she said and smiled, leaned back a little farther in her chair; “Oh Goodbye,” she cried and died; and that was Olive Jane’s beautiful Christmas gift, after many years of suffering.)

“Olive Jane,” said mother, “did you take all of those things? Tell mother.” “Why, yes,” said she, “I did.”

Father got the cane. He sat down near her.

“You could not, of course,” said he, “ eat all that you have taken. So what did you do with it?”

“Oh no,” said she, “ I didn’t eat any of it.”

“Are you storing it up like the squirrels, somewhere, or perhaps you are thinking of starting a home of your own, and are leaving us.”

“No,’ said she, “ I don’t ever want to leave you.”

My father looked helplessly at mother. He stood the cane up in the corner against the wall.

“Tell it in your own way, Olive Jane,” said he.

“Well, Mr. ______ went up into the big pineries to work and just after he got there he was taken sick and he can’t get home, and they have no money and hardly anything to eat, and so I just look a little of many things to help them live – and you remember that you said one day that there was more food in this house than two families could possible eat.”

“ I was a fool that day,” said father.

“I couldn’t sleep nights,’ she cried; her voice got higher with each word, “when I knew that they might be hungry!”

Aunt Lucy came softly with water, and with a pretty was cloth washed the grease from Olive Jane’s face; and without saying a word she made it plain to father that she stood for Olive Jane.

“What did you tell those people?” father asked.

“I told them that mother sent it to them,” she answered.

“Sacre!” exclaimed father. “So you lied to them.”

“Oh yes,” said she, “I lied so they wouldn’t go hungry.”

Father hung up the cane. “Well, I ought to give you a proper caning,” said he, “ but I think now that I will punish you by making you go and tell them that you stole all those things and then lied about it. Will you go?”

“Oh yes,” said Olive Jane, “I’ll tell them. They can’t bring them back now,” said she smiling, happily, “because you see, they have eaten them!”

(To Be Continued)

The Duckins Tombstone

Miss Ruth M. Southard of Baraboo has two most interesting scrapbooks and in one of them is a newspaper clipping which states the stone at the grave of John Duckins in Walnut Hill cemetery was place there through the generosity of Mrs. Julia A. Crouch, now a resident of San Diego, California. The inscription of the stone reads:

JOHN DUCKINS

Born a Slave

In Kentucky, died in Baraboo Wis., 1894

Aged 75 years

Tho dusky was the garb he wore on earth

Up there where we are judged by inner worth, God’s angels who no line of color know, Will clothe his soul in robes as white as snow.

Corie Davis Henton

The article in the scrapbook also says that Corie Davis Henton who wrote the beautiful inscription, formerly resided at 404 Fifth Street, Baraboo, where her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Davis lived. The house, afterwards occupied by the late William Peck, burned. Mrs. Henton was a graceful painter, on both canvas and china. Her sister was Mrs. Alice Davis Olmstead, who with her husband at one time occupied the house at 720 Ash Street, later occupied by Mrs. H.L. Mackey (Clark) and known as the Wigwam. A son of Mrs. Olmstead, George O. married a daughter of F.W. Mould of Baraboo. In a previous item in connection with “The House at the Foot of the Hill” there was a slight error in the above inscription. It is correctly given here.

Ring-Ding Again

I inhaled my first whiff of ozone in Baraboo in the spring of 1850, and I have lived to enjoy Mrs. Anderson’s writings of “The Old House at the Foot of the Hill.” It is a long while to look back to, but as I do so, some minor incidents come to me. I coasted on the hill the winter she speaks of, both on east and west side of street. The east side was like dropping from the clouds.

Speaking of Major Williams farm at Ableman, I worked for James Turner and son Jim. They dug a well for Major Williams before the railroad was build or mother Shipton’s wagons without horses were flying through the air. We had a good old farm dinner but I did not know it for I thought the pork and beans on the table for dinner were full of worms so I did not eat my fill. When I came home for Sunday I told

mother they cooked beans full of worms. Mother said, “Oh, my son, that was the germs of the beans, and the most nutritious part of the beans.” On my return I took to liking the same beans from sheer confidence I put in mother.

Henen’s picture that hung in Don’s room called to my mind my going to a circus at the northwest corner of Oak and Eighth near a large oak tree. The clown sang “Henen and Sayers have just had a fight, they are both hard at trainin’; Henen hit Sayers such a devil of a blow, it sent him to the happy land of Canan.”

At the fore part of the Civil war we lived in one of Mr. Lancaster’s houses. So I was in the neighborhood with Annie and Willie and their father, Mr. John O’Connell, who was liked by all.

Sometime ago a writer in the News said that Mr. Langdon batted a ball over the highest peak of the old court house, I was one of the early players in said game and call to mind one time batting the ball into the upper window of the old stone jail and Pat Wildrick, who occupied the cell, caught the ball and I of course was out. Shortly after that my bother informed me, I being a left handed batter, they could not use me.

Shortly after I came here two years ago I was talking with a party. They mentioned Mr. Bloome’s name and said to me, “ By the way they are from the same place you came from. You will find him at the bank,” So I presented myself and sure enough found Mr. And Mrs. Henry Bloome both natives of Baraboo. Later when I read in the News from the peon of Mrs. Anderson about Bloom’s bull dog killing Ring Ding, business called me into the bank and on my way out Mr. Bloome greeted me with a smile and good morning. I with a smile and a good morning, I said, “If you have a little time, I would like to say something.”

“All right. Come into my part.”

After we were seated I said, “Did you ever own a bull dog?”

“Yes.”

“Did it murder the La Moreaux dog?”

“No.”

Then I repeated about the Ring Ding funeral. Mr. Bloome says, “I will tell you all about my bull dog. There was a peddler’s wagon in front of the store, a nice one painted, had drawers on all sides, with Yankee notions to supply the merchants in those days. (I remembered the rig.) The bull dog was fastened to the hind part of the rig and I (Mr. Bloome) was looking at the dog. The owner said “Do you want the dog?” I said “yes, but I haven’t any money to pay for it.’ ‘You may have the dog and chain,’ he replied. So I took the dog home, on Eighth between Oak and Broadway. Mother objected to my keeping the dog. Father bought hides and in those days they omitted skinning the tail of a cow for hot dogs, so I had lots of meat for my bull dog by extracting the flesh from the tail of the cow hides. He proved to be a fighter. He licked every dog he had a grievance with. Mr. Wm. Fox came to buy the dog and asked me what I would take for the dog? I said $20.00. He went home to meditate but finally took the dog. Fox had a vineyard north of Lyons on the Kilbourn road and the boys could get the grapes better than the Faox in days of yore. The bulldog did damages to Gollmar’s hogs. It was settled in court. Mr. Fox paid for the dog’s frolic. Mr. Fox set the dog on a cow in the field. The cow saw the dog was drawing too near for comfort and made a home run for the barn. The dog ran after the cow and caught it in the barn. They had a real h of a time in the barn. They tore the chitterlings out of the barn. (Not the cow.) Finally when Mr. Fox allowed his optics to focus on the cow correctly he discovered it was his own cow the bulldog was having with such hilarity over. Then his red whiskers got redder and he started to find Mr. Bloome Sr. to recover his $20.00 which would relieve the financial strain as his mind. Mr. Bloome told Mr. Fox, ‘You bought the bulldog from my son. I have nothing to do with it.’

Henry and Charley Wild, Dan and Dwight Wheeler and himself struck a gusher on a place called the ‘Elixor of Life’ on Oak street and that’s how the $20.00 he got for the bull dog evaporated. We hope Ring Ding and the bulldog have made up and are the best of friends long ere this. We will hope and still hope. Who knows? I am inclined to think Ring Dign was given the best, last sad rites.

Henry Bloome learned the tinner’s trade at the Battiker Bros. Hardware store and married General Malloy’s daughter. General Mallow was at one time captain of Co. A Sixth Wis., and my brother, Mair Pointon, served four years and three months in the above company.

SAM POINTON

Escondido, California

Thursday June 3, 1926

PART XIV

AN OLD TIME INDIAN SCARE, AND HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT

In the old home days, I used always to waken when the grey dawn was breaking over the dark hills, and then lie listening to the west wind sighing through the locusts, and the chirps of the birds in the eaves.

As soon as father and mother were up and stirring about below stairs, I would slip out of my bed, gather up my clothing, close the door softly so as not to awaken the other, and go down and lie for a while in mother’s bed.

She laughed the first time that she caught me there, “What is the matter, fuss can,’ said she. “Doesn’t your own bed suit you?”

“ It is the best bed I ever say,” I told her, “but I like to come down in the morning and sleep in your bed for a little while, it is so soft and nice.”

She thought it a funny idea and laughed to the others about it, but it soon became an established fact that if any one wanted to find me in the morning they looked for me in mother’s bed.

Don Andy laughed at me and shamed me, too. “Why you big lump!” he exclaimed, “can’t you keep out of your mother’s bed?”

Along about that time there came up an Indian scare. The Winnebago were holding forth upon the hills and they were not behaving any too well, either.

A band of boys went up there one day to see what was going on and the Indians ran them out of the hills with hatchets and clubs.

At night we could see their camp fires and hear them yell; it was terrifying. The women and children were nearly frightened out of their wits.

“They will all be gone in a few days,” said father. “There is no water up there so they will not stay long. There is nothing to be afraid of any way.”

But the Indians staid up there, water or no water, and we lived in fear and trembling.

Mother and Aunt Lucy were afraid to step out in the back garden for fear that the Indians would shoot at them, and one morning Deacon Cowles found three arrows sticking in his barn door at the side toward the Indian camp.

Father’s barn held the same number and several other barns were decorated in the same manner.

“That is a warning to look out for something!” declared my mother. “We will all be killed some night, and I don’t see why you men don’t do something about it!”

“Maybe the boys did something to the Indians first,” returned father. “They are up to something most of the time; another thing those arrows look kind of queer to me, not like Indian work at all.”

Because mother and we children were so frightened, Uncle John watched nights, and all this time the Indians held the hills and drank fire water and had the time of their lives.

Father Ryan, the priest, was also an early riser, and one morning just at the peep of day, as he was standing on his side porch enjoying the morning air, a young Indian came slithering along the street with a hatchet in one hand and a long knife in the other. He was plastered with red paint and the feathers on his head fluttered proudly in the breeze.

Seeing Father Ryan watching him he shook his hatchet at him.

Something in the way he used his hands and picked up his feet gave him away and the priest watched him and chuckled.

The painted and befeathered young warrior crept into our yard and came slowly along the east side of our house.

I lay there in that little east room, in mother’s bed, in blissful comfort. It was in the day when there were no screen windows.

All at once the room grew dark, I sat up quickly and looked, an Indian was creeping through the open window, he grabbed me by the hair and raised the hatchet, I screamed twice and then fainted. Quite a crowd had gathered there by the time that I came to my senses, and some of them had seen the Indian “beating it” for the hills.

Great was the excitement when I told them that an Indian had been in the room.

The men folks were for getting together and going after them.

Just then Father Ryan came over. “Friends,’ said he, “ I don’t think that it was an Indian at all. I saw him as he came past, and Faith! It looked to me like Don Andy. He ran upon the hill, and when he

gets the feathers and red paint off he will be home again. He won’t own it if you ask him now, but he will be after telling it himself soon. If you punish him, shure you will only make him lie. Give the lad a chance and see what he will tell. Shure, it was but a bit of boyish fun!”

So no one let on that they ever thought of him doing a thing like that, and after a time he told it himself. He said that he was trying to break the big “lump” from getting into mother’s bed! But when a circus came a few days later and father made him stay at home for playing Indian and the others boys were going, he was well punished.

“Dandy,” said father to a crippled old Indian who we all knew and liked and whom father had helped many times, “ Dandy, what are all of you trying to do upon the hills, and why are you fellows shooting arrows into my barn door. What is the truble?”

“Too much dam fire water,” said the old Indian, :Indian he heap dam mad. Boys heap mean!” and by dint of much questioning and by piecing the story together a little at a time, Father at last understood the whole trouble. “ No shoot arrows. Heap big lie. Boys show arrows. Boys heap fools!” said Dandy again. It seemed that the boys and caught and tin-canned two of the Indian’s dogs and their arrival at the camp had caused a grand uproar, and so the next day when the boys went up on the hills the Indians chased them with their hatchets and clubs.

Nether side would own to the arrows. Mother said that the Indians shot those arrows. “Yes,’ agreed father, “they did all right, but they were white Indians.”

‘You don’t really know for sure that,” said mother. “You are just doing some clever guessing!”

“You don’t know for sure that the redskins shot them, either, do you?” he retorted.

“Well, then just who did shoot them?” demanded Aunt Lucy.

“We shall never know,’ answered father, ”but if the boys had let those dogs alone there would have been no Indian scare, for they are all right if you let them entirely along.”

A few days later the Indians moved to Maxwell’s dam, bag and baggage, and everything became peaceful again.

“Andrew,” said Dr. Cowles to my father one day when several of the men were discussing the late excitement, “My boy, Lucien, told me that an Indian hit him on the head and knocked him down. What do you think about that?”

Father countered, “Well, what do you think about it?” he returned.

“Hm-m-m, I couldn’t find any marks or bruises on his head.” Was the doctor’s reply. He told me the story three times and told it differently each time. I think that the boys were trying to start a “revolution” and drive the Indians from the hills, and they fixed those arrows in the barn doors to get us in bad with the redskins, thinking that we would help them!” And the little back-eyed man of medicine chuckled with enjoyment when he had finished telling of the young scamp’s plot.

Father joined in the laugh that followed and then said, “Those arrows looked kind of queer to me at the time, and I felt sure that the boys had done the work, but I didn’t say anything about it. Well the hills belonged to the Indians first, anyway.”

“No sit!” exclaimed Judge Hoxie, “ the wolves owned those old hills first, then the Indians came and took them away from the wolves and then the French,’ said he taking a slam at father, “came and settled in the Baraboo valley, and now they want to take them from the Indians.”

“That’s much better,” retorted father, slamming back at the Judge. “ I heard it was the Irish.”

“Well, Pete Wilkinson,” (An old time wolf hunter) the Judge went on, “says that the wolves are increasing in number so rapidly back in the tall timber it looks like they were planning on taking the hills, again themselves.”

Years after when we were old, the gypsies often came and camped upon the dear old hills. They told our fortunes, sang their weird songs and danced their wild dances for us: and once there was a gypsy wedding there.

No one drove them away in those old days, and the children and the young people made them very welcome.

So you see how many different people at different times held those wild old hills. (To Be Continued)

Thursday, June 10, 1926 PART XV

My Father’s Friend, P.A. Basset

P.A. Bassett, or P.A. as people of the town called him in the early Baraboo days, was a great friend of my father’s. Father was a mill-wright by trade, but there being as much heavy lifting, he gave it up after a time and took up contracting and building. But, understanding millwork as he did he often took charge of Mr. Basset’s mill for months at a time. Mr. Basset owned the little mill and was also first owner of old headquarter’s store. All the old residents will remember Basset’s little mill with it’s pretty crinkly cornice. It was always the busiest little place you ever saw. Sometimes in the spring of the year the old Baraboo rive went on a rampage, threatened the little mill, and to use P.A. Bassett’s own words, “tried it’s d to overflow its banks,” creating a great excitement in the little town. Everyone would be out watching. Mr. Basset and my father stood by shoulder to shoulder until all danger of the mill going out would be over.

Working there together so much of the time they became the best of friends cronies, people called them. Sometimes, for hours at a time, they sat there in the little mill and talked and talked and laughed; or at our house in the evening out on the little narrow porch facing the town, The very next night father would go over at Basset’s and they would go all over it again. They kept it up most nights until after ten. They would talk and talk and laugh. Mr. Basset would pound the side of his chair with his hat and father would get excited and throw his hat just as far as ever he could throw it and then go and pick it up again, for all the world like two boys just out of school.

“If I hoped ‘er up nights around here the way Dan and P.A. does,’ said Don Andy, “I’d get the can and don’t you forget it.”

Madame Basset often told my mother that she never in her life had seen anything like it.

“What under the sun are they talking about?” said mother.

“They don’t say,” answered Madame Basset, and then they looked at each other and laughed.

One night at Basset’s they seemed to have forgotten time altogether and kept at it until the wee, small hours of the morning. Then, Madame Basset and mother decided that it was about time to speak to them about keeping such late hours. “P.A.,” said Madame, “if you don’t get to bed earlier nights than you have been doing, sticking up there on the porch until almost morning and talking and laughing, and keeping those who live near us awake, some one will complain about you. And they need not stop on my account,” said she.

“Complain and be d to them. I’ll go to bed when I get ready to,” P.A. Basset.

Then mother thought she would just tell father what she thought about it. “Andrew,” she said, “can’t you and P.A. make a little less noise out on the porch nights than you do, keeping people awake in the neighborhood. Folks will think you have both been drinking and they will start talking about you.”

My father was shaving. He turned toward Mother, cut a circle in the air with his razor and said, “Sacre ! Did it occur to you, Electa, when you decided to speak to me about this that I might not care a d how much they talk; and it comes to me now while I think of it, that it’s none of their d business.” Mother let father strictly alone after all that.

“Neither one of them are swearing me,” said Madame Basset to mother, so what’s got into them?”

Mother looked troubled. “ I don’t know,” she said.

P.A. delighted in teasing me in those old days. “ A genuine little Frenchie,” said he to my father when he knew I could hear him, “ a regular little French frog.”

“French frog yourself,” retorted I.

He dept at it so long I grew to hate meeting him and kept out of his way as much as possible. One summer father promised me a cap gun for the Fourth of July. When I met him over town one day before the Fourth he bought me the gun and a box of caps. “Now, go and shoot some one,” said he. As I came slowly along on my way home I saw coming toward me P.A. Bassett. He waved to me and called out something in French. I stopped and put a cap on the gun. I had borne so much from him I made up my mind to put a stop to may more of it. “I’ll shoot him,” said I to myself. “It won’t kill him of course but it might hurt him some and anyhow it will frighten him almost to death.” I didn’t care much if it did. He came along laughing at me and jabbering a few French words he had picked up. “I’ll shoot him,” said I to myself again, “but I’ll wait until I get close enough to see the whites of his eyes the way LaFayette told his soldiers to do.” “Don’t fire,” said LaFayette ,”until you can see the white of their eyes.” I held the little gun down at my side and came slowly along and as I came close to him I slammed the gun up to his stomach and fired, P.A. Bassett fell.

He fell on the picket fence, groaned, jerked a few times (and died?) His hat fell off, his head and one arm hung down on one side of the fence and the rest of him on the other side.

I screamed. Why! I had killed a man and they would take me to jail and then hang me. I hadn’t thought those little guns would kill people. Father had said, ‘go shoot someone’ and I had killed his friend. I wondered what father would say when he heard about it. Poor P.A. I began to cry; I wanted to see my mother I was afraid I would never see her again. I ran crying down to the corner and then back again and each time I came back he seemed to sag down more on the fence. I didn’t scream again for, thought I “if I do they will come and get me.” As I ran down to the corner again two men were coming I dropped the little gun into my pocket and ran back again.

P.A. Bassett was just picking himself up off the picket fence. He reached over, picked up his hat, put it on and looked at me and laughed.

“Why. You little French frog,” said he, “you came near killing me.”

I stood and looked at him. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t a murderer and that I was free again. Then I ducked around him and ran crying all the way home. Into the old house at the Foot of the Hill I went, banging the door after me, fell into the big cane rocker and screamed and choked and cried.

“What is the matter with you?” said my mother, shaking me. “What ails you; tell me?”

“I shot P.A. Bassett,” said I. Mother tumbled into another chair and nearly fainted. “Oh God!” she sighed.

Then Aunt Lucy came at me. “Stop this noise,” said she. “You didn’t shoot P.A. at all you know you didn’t.”

“ I shot him all right,’ said I, “but he didn’t die for he got up and put his hat on.”

“What did you shoot him with?” asked Uncle John. I pulled the little gun out of my pocket and held it up. The way the bunch looked at that gun, then at each other and the way they laughed. All except mother, she didn’t laugh. It was a large day, believe me.

P.A. didn’t tease me as much after that. Madame Basset took him in hand and I think he understood too that I wouldn’t stand for any more of it.

P.A. was a southern gentleman and all kinds of a nice man, but I couldn’t see it that way in those old days.

June 17,1926

(To Be Continued)

PART XVI THE SUCCESSFUL ONE AND THE FAILURE

Many years after the surprise party, into a strange city there came one day one of the old gang, dusty and worn, a man whose dark hair was tinges with white. He walked to his hotel slowly, stooping a little as he walked. Lines of care and dissipation showed plainly upon his weary face. He stood for a time and looked about him, then turned and walked into the hotel and after a light meal and a strong cup of coffee he came outside and sat down in one of the hotel chairs, tipped back and proceeded to thing things over.

“Let’s see,” he said to himself. “Last night I won fifty dollars at cards and today I had just enough to pay for my last meal. (My last meal God, if it only were!” said he with a bitter laugh.) I’m all kinds of a failure, a dusty, dirty failure and it is a comfort to know that there are lots of other failures. I have gone down fast, and I was as bright as the best of them. Well no one is at all to blame but myself; I have had my chance; I’m a down and out failure; a stranger in a strange city without money or friends. Friends! There are fno true friends. I had plenty of fair weather friends in those old days when I was prosperous and young, not one of them would care to know me now. Well, thank God, no one in this town does know me!”

He reached down into his pockets again and after a moment’s search brought forth a new bright quarter. “That is more than I expected to find,” he said to himself. “Well, this quarter never did me any good, so I’ll just give it to the crippled peddler who is coming this way.” And as the peddler drew near and began to offer his wares for sale, the traveler arose and handed him the piece of money.

“Good luck to you Mr.,” said the peddler. “The best of luck to you always.”

“Luck!” exclaimed the failure, “who is fool enough to believe in luck?”

He sat straight in his chair, pushed back his hat and looked at the people about him. He watched the teams go by, and the children at play. One tired little girl came and leaned against his knee and smiled up at him.

As he carelessly looked up and down his eyes rested upon a sign just across the street with the printed words, “Judge I. Andrews.”

He stood up quickly, and looked again. “God!” he exclaimed; “Could it be possible? Sure thing,” he said after a time. “ It couldn’t be any one else. I’ll just sit here and get a look at him; he would never know me now.”

The men sitting about the hotel looked at him wonderingly. He sat so long and so quietly. Several tried to talk to him, but they gave it up, he had nothing to say to them. As far as they were concerned he was in a world by himself; he did not seem to see them. They noticed that his clothes though travel stained and dusty, were good and that his handkerchiefs were fine and white. They took him for a man who had traveled far.

Late in the afternoon the office door across the street opened and Judge I. Andrews came forth.

The man in the hotel chair pulled his hat a little lower down over his face and with folded hands watched the judge.

The judge stood in the sunlight with forehead bare while he talked with several passing acquaintances and laughed at something that the children were doing.

The man in the chair watched with steady eyes, and when the judge walked away he came to attention, rushed back, his hat and sat straight again, placed his fingers to his lips and went forth two loud sharp calls which in the gang’s old days meant “Find me” and after it there rose on the summer air the soft, sweet, prolonged old Baraboo whistle – the gang’s call.

The judge stopped, held out a hand and waited, and as he stood there Baraboo and the old home hills rose as in a vision before him. Devil’s Lake’s blue waters rippled and danced and sang to him as of old. Fish at boyhood’s heaven (Maxwell’s dam) rose from the sparkling waters and with beckoning fin called him. Shadowy forms of his old playmates with fish poles and ragged hats crowed about him and laughed joyously. Hebrew and Barney pranced by with arching necks and nods of welcome. His heart thumped sickeningly. He saw it all through a mist of tears; where were they all those friends of his youth, and was some one really sending out the old time call? “Impossible,” said the judge sadly, as he turned and walked on. Then there came again the tow quick calls.

Then - again the sweet haunting music of the old refrain, clear and sweet it rose on the evening air.

The judge turned and came back; the dusty failure laughed low to himself.

As the judge returned he eyed each person sharply; he watched the window across the street, and afterwards said that he was beginning to think that he was “hearing things.” He looked over as the crowd about the hotel, taking notice at last of the man with the folded arms and hat pulled low. Was there a familiar look or had he made up his mind to find out if it was he who was sending out the old call? He called across the street; “Don’t try any old tricks on me, I know you, so come across.”

“Come across yourself,” returned the man in the chair, but then he arose and walked slowly down the street.

The judge walked down the other side and kept and eye on the stranger; they met on the crossing and reached for each other’s hands.

“Ike,” said the failure; “What have I done that you appear before me?”

“ You called,” said the judge, “ - can this be your? What has happened to you?”

“Many things, Ike,” said the failure.

“Can it be you, ?” asked the judge again.

“What is left of me,” said the weary one.

The judge’s keen eyes took in the weary look, the lines of dissipation and discouragement and the dusty clothes.

“Come with me,” said he, linking arms with the failure. They walked back to the office together. The judge unlocked the door and as tenderly as one leads a child he led in the fallen one.

The men about the hotel watched the meeting. “A queer chap,” said one, “ he didn’t care to talk to us.”

“A friend of the judge’s,” said another. “It was he who whistled and the judge knew the whistle.”

The judge turned the key in the lck of the office door. They talked until the daylight faded into twilight, then the failure came out alone and walked over to the hotel, bathed, brushed, got into clean linen and went out to the judge’s home for the night.

“Helen” said the judge, “This is ______ my old Baraboo schoolmate, my friend.”

“I know you,” said the judge’s wife; “I’ve heard of you often, and always wanted to meet you.”

Now the failure was never a lady’s man, he was a man’s man always, but he took her hand and bowed low over it, as to a queen.

“I hope that you will not be disappointed in me. I did not expect to come, but Ike was too much for me; I couldn’t get away from him, but now that I am here I’m very glad that I came,” said he. They spent a most delightful evening together. The judge and the failure talked until far into the night. (It was to be their last night together in this world, for they never met again. The judge passed away before the failure.)

The next morning they walked to the train together, arms linked the successful professional man and the failure.

At the depot they clasped hands, and gazed long into each other’s eyes.

“Ike,” said the failure, “You have restored my faith.”

“Will I see you again?” asked the Judge.

“When I can do what you have asked of me; it may be some time; if I cannot, then NEVER.”

The judge turned sadly away; the traveler when at the car steps turned and sent out after him the sweet old call.

It followed the judge down the street; it called and threatened, pleaded and tore at his heart. He took off his hat and waited till the train thundered past. He waved. A hand from the car window waved back, and thus they parted, never to meet again, those two who loved each other, and who half a century before had belonged to the same old gang, the wonderful old gang of boys in the beautiful town of Baraboo.

Thursday June 24, 1926

(To Be Continued)

PART XVII THE SURPRISE PARTY

We toasted each other with coffee and song.

We danced and we feasted the whole night long

The woodchopper and his wife looked down on our glee, They were ashamed in such company to be!

There was a sound of revelry by night for the gang had gathered there!

In the old days, there lived up near the Pewitt’s New, on a small farm, some Ohio friends of my father and mother, a Mr. And Mrs. Denzlow.

Mr. Denzelow had been a school teacher back in his home state and had come to Wisconsin to get cheaper land and to try farming.

Mrs. Denzelow and mother grew up within three miles of each other and went to the same little country school together; naturally they thought a great deal of each other.

Mr. Denzelow was a great lover of books and had many fine ones of his own. He was like Father Ryan, of whom my father used to say “Everlastingly with his hose in a book.”

Mr. Denzelow was enthusiastic and expected to accomplish great things on that little farm. My father worried about him and his plans. “Denzelow is no farmer,’ said he to mother, “but his wife is, if he would listen to her.”

“Well, Margaret Ann was raised on a farm and Chris was not, you know and that makes a difference,” said mother.

“He had better keep to his books,” returned father. “He ought to be able to something with his education. Now I never meander after strange gods myself,” he continued, “but stick to my trade. I would be no good at other kinds of work. Contracting and building is not the most desirable trade in the world, but I like it and seem to be getting along as well as the most of them. I don’t look for great riches nor perfect happiness in this world so I just peg along and get what pleasure I can out of life as I go along. Now Chris wants to get rich quick. It can’t be done,” said father.

Father ended a great many of his arguments in just that way, “It can’t be done, anyhow not the way you are going about it,” and sometimes when Father did not hear us, we children used the same expression to each other.

The Denzelows loved children, they had none of their own, so they often borrowed one of us for a few days or a week at a time.

Margaret Ann was a lovely little woman with dark eyes and a deep dimple in her chin. Such happy times we had with her at the farm!

The house was of hewn logs, had three rooms and a long narrow pantry, and there was a porch in front.

There were lots of beautiful chickens, there were hogs and horses and a grand old sugar bush. Such maple sugar and syrup as they made at the little farm we never see in these days. (But then we didn’t see any autos in those days, but there were plenty of ox teams upon the streets of Baraboo, and many a fine ride have I taken behind those sturdy old oxen.)

My father bought his maple sugar and syrup each year from two particular friends of his, both farmers and both from Ohio; Mr. Denzelow and Mr. Morell.

I can remember when the pantry shelves at home just groaned under the weight of great cakes of maple sugar.

We children were allowed to break of chunks from the very last cake on one shelf only, but sometimes when mother was not looking we began on another and were soundly boxed to pay for it.

(There were lots of old fashioned flowing blue dishes upon those shelves also, and they too, are something that we do not often look upon in these days. I have in my own home still, one of those old blue plates with the word “Finis” on the under side.)

One fall my mother had not been feeling well, she had been cleaning house and getting things read for the winter and was all tired out. There were so many of us always on the go, and always wanting something done, so one Saturday afternoon the Denzelows came and carried my father and mother home with them for a few days, and my small brother Charles went with them.

“Olive Jane may ask Olive Cumely over to say night, if she likes,” said mother, “but there must be no one else just the two Olives,’ said she.

“That makes four,” said father. “That ought to be enough, and remember, now, no parties or side shows of any kind to tear up things and make a lot of work for your mother after she gets back home.” And as they left the house he turned and looked back at us. “Now,” said he, with emphasis, “no high jinks!” I shall know what you are up to, for I’ll have some one watch you.”

As they drove away we just sat and looked at each other. “What does he me by that?” asked Olive Jane, “about some one watching us?”

“It is hard to know just what he did mean,” said Don Andy. “He’s a canny old boy, is our afther, but if I catch any one watching around here while they are gone I’ll use my sling shot on them. I’ll fix them as we boys did a bull dog last summer. Every boy of us carried a sling shot, and every time that Mr. bull dog left the home yard and came out on a street some one let him have it and he’d get for home ki-ing with his tongue out. They got afraid at last, thought that he was going mad, and he’ll be glad to die some of these days and get out of it all.”

“Now, if any one is watching around here they will get some of the same,’ said he, fixing his sling shot. “And say, don’t, don’t any of you go and tell about that dog, or they will have all of us boys in jail.” Well, we didn’t want the boys to go to jail, so we kept still about that, this being the first time that I have ever told it.

Don Andy began his chores early that night, and said he, “Dress up a little, can’t you? Some one might come in.”

“Father said not,” said Olive Jane. “Father’s got some one watching us.”

“He was bluffing,” said Don Andy. “And we won’t ask anyone to come, but if they do come, why we can’t tell them to go home, can we?”

So we girls “dolled up” as they call it now-a-days, and Olive Cumley came to spend the night with Olive Jane, and she was all “dolled up” too.

We popped corn and brought up a lot of big red apples from the cellar, and then sat around and waited.

After a long time the door bell rang. (Did anyone come?) Like bees, those boys and girls came, buzzing in, filling the hive!

(Youth and Joy entered the low rooms.)

They brought with them all kinds of good things to eat, and those girls just know how to set it out to make it look attractive.

There skirls were not as short as those worn by the girls of today, and they didn’t have nay wrist watches.

Then too, not one of those boys wore creased trousers. There were no cigarettes smoked there that evening; nor any candy in fancy boxes at fancy prices.

The candy that the boys brought along with them was mostly of the stick variety, and the boys hadn’t any watches either, but then anyone who owned a good watch in those days was considered to be “somebody.”

The amount of popcorn that we consumed! The songs we sang!

We frolicked and danced and laughed and forgot all about father.

We asked no questions as to how all this came about, but proceeded to enjoy ourselves.

“Sufficient unto the day and so forth,” said my brother, and at just twelve o’clock we took our places ‘mid shouts of joy. Don Andy at one end of the table and Olive Jane at the other; and it was a long table, I can assure you! All the others were seated as closely as possible.

After we were all in our places and quiet, Don Andy arose to his feet, and held high a sparkling glass of water. (Fresh drawn from the old well. )

“To the finest crowd ever!” he cried. “The boys and girls we have with us here tonight, and may we meet with nothing worse as we pass through purgatory!”

Clark rose next, tipped his glass toward my sister, Olive Jane. “To the young lady of the house,” said he. “She sits here with us.”

Jenkins and Williams toasted the company and caused such an uproar that it was long before we could stop laughing and listen to the others.

Andrews drank to the prettiest girls at the table; but he did not tip his glass to anyone. It would not have been wise even in those old days!

One boy, who was something of a poet, drank to “All things beautiful and fair; there are flowers in every unplowed field and birds in the air.”

“Shut him off now!” cried Clark, “For he is talking poetry, and poetry is just for girls,” and the poet mumbling to himself, slumped down into his place and said no more.

I wish that I could remember all those old toast for some of the were well worth remembering, but sixty years is a long time and one forgets many things.

The last toast was given by a young Jew. He held high his glass and waited until we were quiet.

“To the Jews,” said he. “Don’t forget the Jews.”

Then he grew jocular and said he with a flourish of one hand, “Always with the Jews goes two pair of socks for a quarter!” And the boys cheered him roundly.

Then Pep Longley rose and stood at the table, with his little crooked smile and a lift of one shoulder. “We have made a quick trip,” said he. ”We started in purgatory, and we have arrived with the Jews at Paradise!”

Two things occurred that evening to take the joy out of life for a time; once when some one proposed a toast to the absent owner.

Then we remembered father, and were silent; and once someone pounded loudly upon the dining room window.

We pulled back the curtains, and two terrible, blood stained faces looked in upon us. Bedlam reigned!

Said Olive Jane, “father has some one watching us.”

The boys pulled open a side door and went after some one; and while we waited in fear and trembling, they caught and brought back the “robbers” who proved to be just Bassett and Briscoe with their mothers’ bread knives for swords. Such fun!

After all it was a wonderful crowd of boys and girls who sat with us at table that night sixty long years ago.

There were future judges, there were lawyers and doctors to be, and one who would speak in Congress, and one also, who became something of a poet.

Many of those boys rose to high rank and some were among them who went down into the very dust and slime of the streets, but the old gang never turned its back on the fallen one.

(To Be Continued)

Thursday July 1, 1926

PART XVIII

CHARLES D. AND MEXICO

One summer morning my Uncle John came in from the barn carrying a foaming pail of milk with one hand and a hat full of eggs with the other, and he said to my father, ”Andrew, you had better keep an eye on that young son of yours.”

“Which one?” asked father, laying aside his paper.

“Charles,” replied Uncle John. “He is hiding a can of money in the barn. I caught him counting it, and it sounded as though there might be quite a lot of it. He didn’t see me,” he said with a grin.

“A new country heard from,” said my father. “I noticed him taking and active part in things that did not concern him. What is he doing with money in the barn?”

“I couldn’t find out,” returned Uncle John, “but I thought may be you could.”

“Well, it may take me some time,” said father, “but you watch me get him.”

“Charles,’ he said one morning a few days later, “What are you planning on doing with the money that you are hiding in the barn?”

Charles turned an astonished face toward father. “Hiding money in the barn. Gee whiz! Who said that I was?” said he.

“Stop that kind of talk,” said father, “and answer me as you should. Just what are you planning on doing with the two dollars you are hiding out there? How did you come by it?”

“Judas Priest,” said Charles. “What next? What’s up now?”

“Some one’s been doing some talking and someone is going to get hurt!”

My father stepped into the cane room as Don Andy called the room where father hung the cane. He took it down from the wall, “Charles,’ said he, bringing it down on young Charlie’s shoulders with a bang. “That story of yours goes in one ear and out at the other; you were caught with the goods, so don’t try to make a fool of me for it can’t be done the way you’re going about it. So speak up now, and tell the truth about that money; how did you get the two dollars and what were you doing to do with it?” But Charles was game, he started in again!

“Gee whiz! I’m trying to find out who told that on me!” Father did not wit for him to get any farther, he ran him into the cane room and closed the door.

“Charles,” said he, “we will for get all about the two dollars while I cane you for lying.”

Father caned young Charles until he promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if he would only let him go.

“Now,” said father as they came out, ”speak up, will you? I want the others all to know what an accomplished story tell your are.”

“Gee whiz! I’ll tell you,” said Charles.

“Old Gordon, the old man who hauls your wood, says it don’t pay no how to be honest. He says he might have been a rich man if he had been good at lying; and he says he stood in his own light always, trying to be honest, and he says he was a fool for it don’t pay.”

Uncle John roared.

Uncle John was enjoying the Gordon part of the row. Charles was so deadly in earnest about it all!

Father interposed. “That is enough about Gordon and his honesty; it is your honesty that is being questioned – now, and not Gordon’s.”

“Well, gee whiz!” said Charles, “I just naturally came by that two dollars all right. I earned fifty cents working for Mrs. Turner and mother gave me twenty-five the other day, and Uncle John gave me fifty cents three weeks ago and I saved it, you gave me fifty cents to go to the circus with and I crawled under the tent and saved my money.”

Uncle John roared again.

Father looked funny, he couldn’t say very much, for he had boasted once about doing that very same thing when he was a boy at Montreal, Canada, so he just hurried Charles along

“Well,” said he. “What were you planning to do with it?”

“Well, gee whiz!” said Charles. “If I every get enough I’m going to get me a blooded rooster. Billie Hudson and Phil Gibbons each have one and I want one.”

“What’s the limit?” inquired father.

“Three dollars and gee whiz! He is worth it. He’s a Harvard bird and Engineer Slyfield will bring him here on his engine.”

“Why, three dollars is an awful price to pay for a rooster!” said mother.

“Someone is skinning you boys,” said Uncle John. “I can get you the best roosters going for a dollar.”

“Gee whiz!” said Charles, “ I want the kind of rooster that I want or I won’t have any.”

Father sat looking at him; he had been a boy once himself.

“Look here, young man,” said he, “there is more to all this than you are telling; I don’t pretend to know what, but I’ll make it my business to find out. You may bluff your mother with big words but as I said before your story goes in one ear and out at the other, and don’t do quite so much gee whizzing around here; and hand over the two dollars to you mother to take care of for you while you go ahead and earn the other dollar and don’t let me hear of your hiding anything in the barn again. Now clear out.”

So Charles brought the tin can of money to mother.

“Gee whiz!’ said he, ‘A feller can’t even have what belongs to him. Father is always telling about everything going in one ear and out at the other; I get sick of that!”

Don Andy explained that remark of father’s in this way: “The people of our day,” said he, ”are eye-minded; they used to be ear-minded. Our dad is ear-minded. If he don’t agree with a thing, he says it goes in one ear and out at the other. We say, I don’t see it that way, because we are eye-minded. In father’s day every one was ear-minded; education advancement, knowledge and everything came through the ear, now it is the eye. Just say, I can’t see it that way when he tells you about things going in at one ear and out at the other, and he will understand.”

“Oh, yes! I can see myself telling him that,” exclaimed Charles. “You tell him yourself.”

It took him some time to get the third dollar, but he kept pegging away and at last there came a day when mother handed the can of money over to him and told him to go and get his rooster and “no crooked work about it either,” said she, “for your father is watching you.”

Charles had partitioned off one end of the chicken yard by driving some sticks into the ground and then he tied them all together with twine.

“Why don’t you put him in the yard with the other chickens, Charles?” asked mother. “There is plenty of room there.”

“I don’t want he should ‘sociate with common scrubs,” said Charles.

“He is something of a bird himself.”

Father laughed when he saw the twine and sticks. “Just about how long do you think those sticks and strings will hold a rooster with any ginger in him, Charles?” he asked.

“He’s just plum full of ginger,” said Charles, “full of business!”

So that evening he brought the rooster home and threw him over in the little yard that he had made for him, and the next morning while we were at breakfast, there came up the worst racket and crowing that you ever listened to. We all ran out to see what was up. The new rooster was over in the yard with the other chicken; he had killed one of mother’s best roosters and was just wiping up the ground with the other.

“Sacre! A game bird!” exclaimed father. “So that is the reason that he came so high, but I imagine that you thought to make a little money on the side fighting roosters, didn’t you, Charles? Its easy work. I have heard that it is a very paying business in some countries, but not here. I can see your little game very plainly! Now throw him out there and if he kills any more of your mother’s chickens you will have to pay for them, and if I ever hear of your fighting him anywhere you’ll get something.!”

So Charles threw him out. “He won’t go very far away,” said he. “He’ll just hand around here and try to get mother’s rooster again. He is good and mad, and I guess now they can all see that he’s got plenty of ginger! I told Dad that he will full of business and if my father would only let me along I could make more money with this spunky little bird than he can working; but he thinks that every one ought to work; says work is good for a feller. I mean to get into something where I don’t have to work; I don’t believe in work myself.”

“That,” said Uncle John, “is a sure enough crazy rooster; he has tried all day to get back in the chicken yard to fight some more!”

He crowed until it got on mother’s nerves and she begged Charles to take him some where else, and Aunt Lucy threatened to go away on a visit.

Charles called him “Mexico” and sometimes “the whole of Mexico.”

“Andrew,’ said Uncle John, once again, “you had better watch that young son of yours; he’s fighting “Mexico” every chance he gets.”

“Does he fight him for money?” asked father.

“Oh yes, I think he does,” said Uncle John, “but if he can’t get money he is willing to take most anything else; then he trades or sells; he is doing a land office business.”

“Those two are a game pain,” said father. “They will take all the punishment that you hand out to them, and come back after more! That rooster has made a lot of bother around her. I wish that something would happen to him.”

“Well, yes,” said Uncle John. “Yes, it would be a good thing for all hands!”

So it went on all summer, the boys fighting roosters and their fathers thrashing them soundly each time that they heard of it.

One Saturday, late in the fall mother asked Uncle John to kill a couple of rooster. “ I want to get them ready for our Sunday dinner,” she said.

“Does it make any difference which one?” he asked.

“No;” said mother. “We are not going to keep any of them.”

“Well, give me the hatchet,” said he, “ and I’ll make short work of them.” And in a few minutes he was back to the house with the two headless roosters.

“Oh, John!” exclaimed mother, as she looked at them. “Why John! You have killed the whole of Mexico!”

“Oh, did I?” said Uncle John. “Why! I guess I did! They were fighting and I just grabbed them and chopped off their fool heads. Too bad!” he said with a silly smile.

“How in the world did he get in the chicken yard?” asked mother.

“Oh, he has been flying over for several days and Charles wouldn’t allow me to clip his wings. It is too bad!” he said again, “ I thought that he was awful small, but I killed him before I noticed!”

“Andrew;” said my mother that evening when father came home. “A dreadful thing happened here today. I asked John to kill two roosters for our Sunday dinner and he made a mistake and killed Mexico!”

The eyes of father and Uncle John met for one brief second and then turned away.

“Thank God!” exclaimed father, as he took his place at the table.

“We have had a terrible time with Charles and he is upstairs now, throwing things in every direction; you will have to see to him,” said mother.

“I’ll low on him after dinner; but if any one ever sells a game bird to any of my children again, or even brings one on to the place. I’ll have the law on them,” declared father. “Now let us have peace.”

“Amen!” said my Aunt Lucy Colton.

Charles D. who for the last few years has made his home in the land of the big red apples, Wenatchee, Washington, is now in the Twin Cities and he looks back with keen enjoyment to the days when with other lads, he roamed the streets of old Baraboo with “Mexico” under one arm, drumming up rooster fights and getting himself into all kinds of trouble and taking the canings father gave him like a man.

(To Be Continued)

Thursday July 8,1926

PART XIX

AN OLD BARABOO FAIR AND A BATTLE

“THERE ARE TIMES,” SAID MY BROTHER, DON ANDY TO JOHN CLARK, WHEN A FELLER EITHER HAS TO BE A MAN OR A MOUSE OR A LONG-TAILED RAT

Some one in our neighborhood remarked to Don Andy that they hadn’t noticed Clark bumming around the House at the Foot of the Hill as much as usual. “What’s up? Hasn’t gone away, has he?” But they didn’t get any satisfaction asking Don Andy. He either didn’t know or just wouldn’t tell.

Mother was the next to notice that something had gone wrong with the two cronies. “What has become of Johnnie Clark, Don Andy? He hasn’t been here for the longest time,” said she.

“I don’t know and I don’t give a keeper,’ said Don Andy, “but he’s got a lickin’ coming to him,” he added. “One of us is in for it, and I don’t care which. If he licks me this time, I’ll keep at it until I do get him.”

“Have you quarreled?” inquired mother. “if you are al all to blame you had better go and make it up with John, and tell him that you want to be friends again.”

Don Andy snorted, “I see myself doing that!” he exclaimed, “do you take me for a softy? John is to blame and he had got to say so; he borrowed a dollar from me a year ago and he won’t pay me. I’ll lick him good some of these days and then tell him to keep the dollar!”

“And did you quarrel over a dollar after being friends so long?”

“No,” said Don Andy, “It was all about something else. ”But he didn’t say what, and neither of those boys ever did tell.

The quarrel caused quite a little stir because every one knew how much they had thought of each other!

Madam Hobart took it up next and with tears in her eyes begged them to forgive each other and be friends again. Nothing doing, nor could she find out what it was all about.

Every one made a guess. It might have been this or it must have been that. Even old Mr. Schmidt, a German, who lived way up on Eighth Avenue and who sat day after day smoking a long pipe and drinking beer while his wife Mary took in washing for a living. He said that he knew, “Some girls she make drouble mit dose poys alretty!”

“Well,” said mother after Don Andy had gone to school. “I think that I had better go and tell Anna Clark just how John is behaving.”

Father put down the paper that he had been reading. “Electa,” said he, “you had better keep out of this. Perhaps Mrs. Clark could tell you a few things about your son.”

“I would just like to know what she could say about Don Andy,” said mother, with a sniff. “You will have to watch those boys, Andrew, or they will fight; and John is much the stronger and he will whip Don Andy!”

“The battle is not always to the strong,” retorted father, picking up his paper. “Let them fight; I wouldn’t give much for a boy who could not fight, something wrong with him.”

“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?” she asked.

“Not I,” said father. “Let them fight and after that they will be thicker than fleas in a roadhouse. And if you are wise you will keep out of it.”

Mother wiped away a few tears, and said, “There is no comfort to be found anywhere!”

When fair time came the boys went to work on the fair grounds.

The fair was held on the John Crawford land and my father and Byron Lee, I think, built the display buildings and the fair ground fence.

John began selling pink lemonade and popcorn at one stand and Don Andy to sell patent medicine at the stand. It was on a little platform so that people could see and hear him, and it was trimmed up and looked fine.

Don Andy stood up behind the little wooden counter and began selling. He fairly crackled with energy and enthusiasm. He talked with his hear, neck and shoulders. His knees smote each other and his hands were in constant motion.

“I’m a courier,” he shouted. “I’m a messenger sent in haste, I’m a traveling salesman and I’m here to sell these goods for less than their cost of a traveling crowd!” And he tried to persuade, reason and convince the crowd just why they should buy of him. He sold liniments, salves, ointments, cough drops, perfumes, love powders and pills also Mr. Morehead’s own make of plasters. He shouted, “Come and buy a Morehead plaster, the more you try to pull it off it only sticks the faster! Hey, Jerry,’ said he, sticking up two fingers as Mr. Dodd passed by in the crowd, “Come over here and buy some of this wonderful itch ointment and stop that awful itching that you told me about!”

“Don’t injure yourself, Don, trying to be funny,” Mr. Dodd answered.

I suppose some of those things were really good, and I know for a fact that the “love powders” were perfectly harmless, being just some of mother’s pink, blue and yellow sugar that she sometimes used on her cakes to make them look pretty good.

Mother had bought the package for twenty-five cents and had used about half of it.

Don Andy wanted what was left.

“Now, what does a boy want of pink sugar?” asked mother. then “what are you up to, now?’

“Oh, I just want to have a little fun with it,” he answered. So mother let him have the sugar. He got a lot of tiny homeopathic pill bottles, and filled them with the sugar and sold them for love powders at twenty-five cents per bottle. The young men of the village bought them for the fun of it and gave them to their girls. They all had great sport over those bottles, the men telling the boys to go ahead and buy. “Go it while you are young,’ said they. “One is never young but once” and all the time the dimes and quarters, the pennies and half dollars kept dropping into the box.

Mr. Morehead looked on in astonishment. He was a feeble old man who worked hard tramping about the country trying to make a few dollars selling medicine. He sat back and watched Don Andy. “Don Andy,” said he in a whisper at the close of the first day. “We are making money.”

“Well!” said my brother. “That is what we are here fore, and it will only take us the three days to become bloated bond holders!” The old man laughed like a child.

Everything would have gone all right if Don Andy and John Clark could have forgotten their grouch and not gone to throwing slurs at each other.

John’s face took on a deeper red, while Don Andy grew paler.

Father went to both of the boys. “Cut it out until the fair is over,” he ordered. “You will be fighting if you keep this up. People here are not interested in rows. You are here to work!” So that put a stop to it all for that first day.

Both boys were to have seventy-five cents each day, but Mr. Morehead gave Don Andy a dollar and a half, and he made quite a few dollars with his sugar powders, and his feeble old boss said to father, “Your son is a born salesman.”

The second day Don Andy sold more goods, and the more he made the cheekier he became. He tried to sell the priest a bottle of love powders to the great enjoyment of the crowd about the stand. His hands flew faster than the day before and his head and neck were in constant motion.

John sold when people asked to buy, but he wasted no breath on them. They could “buy or let it alone,’ he said, “What’s the use of talking to a lot of sheep?”

Don Andy stopped selling on the third day long enough to give us a spin around the track with the ponies.

Mother was not there, she had stayed at home to rest and father didn’t care to go with us as he was visiting with P.A. Bassett.

Billy Bassett came and got into the buggy with Olive Jane on one side and me on the other. “You had better get out,” said Billy to me. “You are too small to go with us, we will probably go pretty fast and one can never tell just what will happen before we get back here, or who will have to pick up the pieces.”

“I can ride just as fast as the other can; I want to go,” I said; and I went.

The Andrews and George Cluff, a Madison boy, rode with Don Andy. Those ponies just flew around the track; Don Andy held them in for he knew that somewhere on the grounds father was watching us.

As we came under the little arch John Clark threw a slur about the sugar powders and Don Andy answered back about the pink lemonade and as he stepped in behind the counter he looked down at John and laughed.

“If you laugh at me again,” said John Clark; “I’ll smash your face!” Don Andy laughed again. “Come down here, where I am and laugh; come down, you coward!”

Down over the little wooden counter went my brother and the trembling hands of his feeble old boss failed to hold him.

“What are you calling me a coward for, John Clark? Did you ever know me torun from a fight?” Clark thought for a moment. “No!” said he, “ I don’t know that I ever did, but you will this time or take a licking.”

“Well, you stop calling me a coward. I won’t take that from any one, you bid beef eating John Bull!” cried Don Andy.

“Now,” said John, “You will have to fight,” and he began to take off his coat.

“I’ll be ready for you, Clark, any time that you are for me,” returned my brother. Then he shouted, ”Stand away from behind me, will you!”

Every one crowded over to one side. Don Andy came back on his toes like a car, and off went his coat and cap.

“Now,” said he, “you big bluffer, I’m ready for you.”

Percy Crossman came running by. He stopped for a moment, then started to run again and as he ran he gave the well known whistle and it was answered from different parts of the fair grounds and soon a gang of boys formed a ring about the fighters.

A small boy yelled, “Fight! A fight!”

A young fellow reached out and grabbed him. “Here, don’t you go calling a crowd, and spoiling the fun. You yell again, ”said he, “and I’ll throw you over the fence and out!”

“Eat him up, Don Andy,” shrieked Joe Davis.

“Tie him in knots!” shouted Jake Gollmar.

“For the honor of the gang!” yelled Pep Longley.

“Drive him into the ground and break him off, Clark!” shouted Clark’s friends.

I climbed upon a step ladder to see if father was near at hand, it sounded to me as if murder was about to be done, but I could not see anything of him, he seemed to have disappeared entirely. So I sat there wishing that some one would stop that fight.

An Irish boy called out, “Get the priest!”

“The priest, h ,” growled Clark. “Keep him out of here,’ and the gang cheered him.

A young sport who had been leaning against the stand looking on and listening to the boys, went over to where they were.

“I’ll referee this little scrap for you,” said he. “If you boys care to have me.”

“You look all right to me,” said my brother.

The young sport turned to Clark. Clark looked him over, and made answer; “You don’t look to me as though you knew enough to referee a rooster fight, but I don’t care, go ahead.”

So the sport hung his hat and coat upon a pole and started in, and it was noticed that whenever he looked at Clark his eyes narrowed to little slits.

“Now!” said he, “You boys have a chance to makeup this little quarrel and call off the fight, and I’ll help you all that I can if you care to have me. Now how is it with you, Clark?”

“Well;” said John, “if Don Andy will apologize, take it all back, eat crow, you know, why then we will call it off.”

“Call off nothing!” exclaimed my brother with blazing black eyes and face so pale. “We will fight and this time Clark, you will either have to be a man or a mouse or a long tailed rat, now which are you?”

Everyone cheered and laughed, even the referee leaned against the stand, held himself and laughed.

“All right!” returned Clark, “we will fight, but you know that I’ll lick you, don’t you?”

“I know that you will try it, darn hard,” said my brother.

The young sport looked the boys over and made up his mind what their chances were, then he got them into position and they shook hands; those boys who had thought so much of each other now faced about with murder in their hearts.

The referee laughed; then he talked to them for about a minute, but I couldn’t hear what he said. I covered my face and cried softly to myself, no one took any notice of me. I heard “Now, let her go!” and the sound of blows.

Clark gave my brother a blow on the jaw that turned him half way around and keeled him over. Olive Jane screamed and ran over to the boys. “You stop fighting!” she shrieked, “Stop fighting! I will tell you! I hate you bother! I always hated you.”

One of the gang caught her and held her while she screamed, cried, twisted her fingers, pulled her hair and prayed, but she couldn’t get away.

Don Andy went down not to stay. All the fighting blood of his old French ancestors rose within him at that blow; the gang cheered him as he came back, but he was cautious now, and fighting carefully. He had himself in hand and he wasn’t doing any talking. He ducked and side stepped and dodged John’s blows. His face was deadly pale, locks of damp black hair struggled down over his forehead, his white teeth showed in a snarl like an enraged animal eager for the fray, and the light of battle shone in his eyes.

The young sport, though not, much older than the boys themselves understood his business. He timed and directed them, and they stood up to each other, struck out from the shoulder like me. (Not for nothing had Prof. Hobart taught them the “manly art” at the old Institute. )

Clark gave my brother another blow on the jaw and it began to swell, but he ducked and gave John a blow in the eye.

John forgot and put up his hand and Don Andy smashed him on the nose which brought the blood.

“Oh!” cried some one in the crowd. “Just look at the blood.”

“Blood nothing!” exclaimed my brother. “That is pink lemonade.”

John roared and reached for Don Andy, but the sporty little referee slammed him back into place.

“Fight fair, Clark!” said he, “or I’ll make you” and Clark obeyed him.

Some one on the grounds kept pounding on a triangle to call the people to meals, and I have never heard a triangle since that it did not bring back to me the day that my slim young brother stood up to fight!

Don Andy kept his eyes on John’s face and watched for a chance at the eyes or nose.

John’s blows were mighty bad ones when they landed, but Don Andy was too quick to let many of them land.

A surprised look came over John’s face and he began to wake up to the fact that as my father had said, “The battle is not always to the strong!”

Then he grew angry and his blows went wild.

Then Don Andy got a bad one on his eye again.

The sporty little referee hopped right along with them.

John struck for Don Andy’s eye and cut just beneath it.

With the blood streaming down his face, Don Andy smashed John’s nose twice, and John went down. His eye and the blood bothered him and being much slower than Dan Andy, the sport counted him out, and reached for his coat and hat.

“Clark,” said he, “You were right about my not being fit to referee a rooster fight. I think myself that I couldn’t do it justice, but I can almost always pick a winner. I booked you for a good licking, and you go it. Now, answer this boy’s question. Are you a man or a mouse or a rat with too long a tail? Just which are you?”

“I’m a rat,” said Clark. “An old grey rat;” and the name followed him for years.

Then father came and handed Don Andy his coat and cap.

“Go home, Henan,” said he. And the gang cheered for Henan.

Dr. Cowles drove up. He had watched the battle from afar.

“Both of you have a black eye,’ he said slowly. “But you will get over that all right, still fighting is bad business, boys. Better keep out of it. However, I’ll admit, that there are times when it isn’t possible. For,” he went on, standing up in the buggy and smashing his right fist down into the open palm of his left hand, “any man or boy who has a drop of red blood in his veins will always fight before he will stand to be called a coward or run! Hop in, Don Andy, I’m going past your place and I’ll leave you there.”

The gang hoisted Don Andy into the buggy and cheered him loudly.

They cheered Dr. Cowles, too, and called him a “jolly old top” and one of Sauk county’s best doctors.

Mother nearly fainted when she looked at Don Andy. She went white and sat down quickly. Aunt Lucy stood up, in her silk and old lace, hands uplifted, “Have you murdered some one?” she asked. “You know that I always said that you would!”

“Cover your face!” said my brother, crossly. He had borne enough for one day and through.

John and Don Andy both stayed close at home for a few days, but one sunny afternoon Don Andy hitched up the ponies and gave Olive Jane and me a ride out on the Portage road. As we came back in the dusky twilight, we drove past the old Western hotel and on to the post office.

The streets were getting dark as we turned toward home for there were no street lamps in those old days, but Don Andy’s sharp black eyes found John in spite of the grey duck. He whistled, held up two fingers, and shouted, “Hi, there! You beef eating Tommy Atkins! When are you coming over?”

John held up two fingers and answered the whistle. “Hey, you French frog,” said he. “I’ll be over tomorrow evening.”

When the funny little door bell rang the next evening mother opened the door. She reached out and pulled John into the room. “Oh John!” she exclaimed, “Oh, John Clark!”

“Gosh,” said John.

A few evenings later Mr. and Mrs. Clark came over to the House at the Foot of the Hill to spend the evening.

“Anna,” said mother, “the boys have been behaving so badly that I was afraid that they would turn you against me. Aren’t you glad that they are friends again?”

“Yes,” answered Mrs. Clark, “I am glad, but no one knows Johnnie Clark as well as I do. He has overbearing ways, he is stubborn and had to get along with, he is all the world just like his father, has a disposition just like him.”

No one said a word for some moments; then father turned and looked at Mr. Clark.

“Clark,” said he, “I never knew that you were that kind of man, I always thought that you were a pretty good sort of a fellow!”

“Oh, we are all good fellows,” said Mr. Clark, “if you let us tell it, but if you let our wives tell it, why then the devil wouldn’t have us!”

“Bon!” said father.

So after days of strife, battle and bloodshed, peace once again descended upon the House at the Foot of the Hill. The swallows chattered in the chimneys, the humming birds and the bumble bees fought over the roses and clover blossoms, and we children played about the sunny old dooryard and in the gardens. John and Don Andy were seen together again on the streets or driving about with Hebrew and Barney as of yore. “Thicker than fleas at a roadhouse.” And after all it had been a wonderful fair time, for it was autumn and Baraboo woods were glowing with color, and the sound of the thrashing machine was heard in the land. In a dim sort of way the faces of many who attended that fair often come back to me. The woman who told the fortunes, the little dark man who ran the “Carselles” (merry-go-round), the balloon girl and boy and the bride.

“Who is the bride?” asked someone of mother, as she walked past, with her young husband. Mother turned and looked, “Oh,” said she, ”that is young Mrs. Nixon. Adam Nixon was married some time ago. Doesn’t she look pretty, all in white. Isn’t it too bad that they cannot always be young and happy.”

And they there were always the lady riders with Gussie Maxwell leading, and you still have the referee among you.

Editor: I have writing in Mr. Morehead as owner of the stands but I am not quite sure that the name is right.

(To Be Continued)

Thursday July 29,1926

PART XX

THE JEW GENTLEMAN AND HIS LADY – “THE KOLLINERS”

Two little stores in Baraboo in the old home days furnished all kinds of thrills for the children of the town. There was the little general story belonging to a Jew gentleman and his lady, over on Main Street and where the children, passing by, often stood speechless and helpless before the gory of it’s windows. And just about a block farther on, Charles Ryan kept his watch and clock store.

Those two little stores were to me the most interesting places to be found in the village. A part of the Ryan store and one window was given over entirely to watches and clocks. I don’t remember much about the watches but those clocks called to me each day as I passed back and forth on my way to school. He kept them all wound and their ticking delighted my heart. I often stood at the window watching them go and Mr. Ryan, seeing me there soften, came one day to the door and invited me in. “Come in Rose,” said he, ‘and listen to the clocks.” Oh joy! We stood together, Mr. Ryan and I, listening, it seemed to some great secret the clocks were forever trying to tell.

“Well, what do you think about all this and which clock do you like the best?’ said Mr. Ryan.

“I love them all they are so beautiful,” said I.

A great clock on a high shelf began striking in a loud, harsh voice BANG! BANG! BANG! it went. “It’s angry,” said I, “and just dearly loves to strike.”

And so, with Mr. Ryan’s permission, I named that clock “Terrible Tom,” and began naming the others.

There was the small clock with kept trying so hard to make itself heard, and the one which ticked so fast that I called “The busybody”; she always had so much to say, and the one who ticked so “steady and nice” that I named “The peacemaker,’ and then there was the one which tolled, “It is tolling for the dead,” said I. “Don Andy says some one dies each moment in this old world, so it much be tolling for the ones who are leaving here.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Ryan. “I hadn’t thought of that; it does sound like a bell tolling, doesn’t it?”

I think now that he must have gotten as much enjoyment out of it all as I did; for he often invited me in to see a new clock and seemed to like to hear what I had to say about it.

But even the Ryan store with the glory of its clocks and jewels rare could not compare with the little general store belonging to the Jew gentleman and his lady on Main Street.

Papa and Mama Kolliner, they called each other. They were an industrious, lovable couple and wholly devoted to the five children who called them “Father” and “Mother”.

Emil, the oldest son, spent most of this time with an uncle who lived in Milwaukee. Then there were Max, Jakie and Robert at home, and their sister, Jenny.

Those children all grew up to be an honor to the name.

Each week Mrs. Kolliner changed things in the store window, taking out those that had been exhibited the week before and placing in the new. Those windows were tome a veritable fairyland, and I bowed down and did homage to the glitter and beauty that sparkled and glowed behind the old white frames.

There were feather, flowers, beads and all kinds of glittering things; beautiful silks and laces and one day there shone out from among all the splendor displayed there a pair of silver vases. Oh, they were so beautiful! I stood speechless and helpless before them! I had never seen a silver vase, but my brother, Don Andy had read once of a king who owned a silver vase, a real tear vase, “Just to weep in,” said Don Andy. “Very nice thing to have around!”

“Well, perhaps these were tear vases; I would ask and find out, so I opened the door and went into the store.

Mrs. Kolliner came to meet me; “You like those vases, Rose?” she asked.

“Oh, they are so beautiful!” I answered. “Are they tear vases, Mrs. Kolliner?”

“My dear little girl I don’t know what you are talking about,” said she. Then I told her about the kind who had owned the silver tear vase.

“Oh, no,” said she, “these are for roses.”

“How much money must I give you for them?” I asked.

“They are one dollar and twenty five cents,” said she, “but I will let you have them for a dollar. How much money have you?”

“Fifteen cents,” I told her. And Mrs. Kolliner who possessed a vein of humor, sat down and laughed.

“Oh!” said she with a chuckle of merriment. “Just listen to that now! Will you be advised by me, Rosie, and speak to your father and mother about them? I think perhaps they will want you to have them.”

“Father is making our home now and we can’t go to him for money and mother is helping him all she can. He gives the boys a little spending money. Don Andy gets seventy-five cents a week when he behaves himself, but there are lots of weeks when he don’t get a thing,” said I. And Mrs. Kolliner had another good laugh.

She promised me, without asking to keep the vases for a week or two and give me a chance to buy them; though how in the world I was ever going to do it, I couldn’t see for the life of me see.

“Just scratch around now and see what you can do,” said the Jew lady, and the Jew gentleman handed me a candy heart and they both laughed at me.

I went first to Don Andy and told him about the vases and asked him to help me.

He got out the money and counted it. “By George!” said he; “I’ve only go sixty-five cents, but James owes me a dollar and a quarter, and he don’t pay me now, I’ll lick him, I’ll see him this evening and if I get it I’ll give you the quarter.” “He is working now and he has got to pay it,” said Don Andy. And that evening he handed me the quarter.

Don Andy was forever loaning out a little money first to one boy and another, and if they did not pay just as they promised to he would keep threatening them and making them pay interest.

I went to Charles next, and told him about the vase and asked him to help me.

“I only get twenty-five cents a week,’ said he, “and every one is after me for money. I need money myself, I need it bad. I tried to borrow a little of Don Andy the other day, and he kicked me out of the woodhouse. You wait,” said he, darkly, “and see what I’ll do to him!” “Go to Uncle John, he will help you.” So I went to Uncle John and he dug down and gave me what small change he had, only fifteen cents. He said that he had just given the rest to Charles, (and Charles was so foxy that he never said a word about it. Well, anyhow (Oh Joy!) I was getting there slow but sure, and I began to think of those vases as mine.

I waited two days before asking Aunt Lucy. She was the moneyed one of our family, but Don Andy always said that it was easier to get blood out of a turnip that money from Aunt Lucy.

I told her about the silver vases.

“Siver!” said she, “I’ll bet anything that they are nothing but cheap glass.”

“What are you fooling with the Jew for? That Jew woman will get you every time. What did your father tell you about asking people for money?”

“She’s a nice lady,” said I, “and I like her.”

“Well,” said she, “it is not nice for little girls to beg, but you don’t very often so I’ll have to help you this time.” And she opened her pocketbook and gave me a quarter.

“Don’t be disappointed if they turn out to be glass,’ said she. “All is not silver or gold that glitters, Rosie.”

Then Mother took me in hand and told me not to ask people for money, “That is begging,” said she, and she gave me ten cents.

I had all but just a few cents now and I began to dream of the time when I could bring the vases home with me. How they would glitter and shine in the old parlor! I would set them side by side on the mantel where we children hung our Christmas stockings and where everyone who came into the room would see them first of all; and then when I had all but just a few cent of getting them, my sister, Olive Jane, walked into the store one day and bought them of one of the clerks while Mrs. Kolliner was away somewhere.

“Well,” said Olive Jane, “we will divide, you take one vase and I will keep the other. Do you want one?” she asked.

“No,’ said I, “they belong to you now, you bought and paid for them, and if I couldn’t have them both I don’t want just one, anyhow. They don’t want to belong to two people, they always want to stay with each other.”

“How foolish,” said my practical sister, Olive Jane. “Just as though they know.”

“One time,” said Don Andy, “ a Negro had two pigs, one got out of the pen one day and ran away, and after hunting for it for about a week he gave it up for lost, and came over here and wanted Dad to by the other one.”

“William,” dad told him. “It is a nice pig. I wouldn’t sell it if I were you.”

:No, sah,” said William. “No sah, if I can’t have two pigs I won’t have nary pig at all.” And that is the way that Rosie feels about those vases. If she cain’t have both she “won’t have nary vase at all, nohow! And so Olive Jane kept the vases for more than fifty years, carefully, as she did all things that came to her keeping and at her death with other relics they became mine, and now they are yours, Ede and I hope that you will love them as we have for old time sake.

Papa Kolliner died long years ago. After his death the little general store on Main Street grew quiet for a few days. People ceased to pass in and out, then the doors were again opened to the public, and the Jew lady took up the burden of life alone with his children. She spoke of him often to old friends, and it was plain to others that she had loved him well. In speaking of him, she began in this manner:

“Mr. Kolliner, I hope he is in mercy,” and then she would go on and tell her story.

Well; the old order changeth, and giveth away to the new. Where the little general store on Main Street once stood with swinging doors inviting the people in, a newer and loftier building stands and new people with new thoughts and ways pass where we passed, but the glittering, sparkling windows are no more, and thus I finish my story of the silver vases with a toast to dear Mrs. Kolliner, the Jew lad, “I hope she is in mercy.”

By the way, Robert Kolliner, who read this story, declared himself deeply touched by the kindly reference to his sainted parents who he held in reverential memory, and that he had shown the story to his

brother Jake, who was war mayor of Stillwater, and proposed sending it to his sister, Jenny, who no lives in San Francisco, and to his brother Max. Robert himself, became a federal judge.

(To Be Continued)

Reads The Story

I have been reading the stories of old Baraboo, by Mrs. Anderson of Princeton with much interest. I met Mrs. Anderson many times last summer at Isle on the Lake and I find her a very entertaining and interesting lady.

One just seems to see the old town of Baraboo through those sketches and my father and mother, Dr. and Mrs. N.P. Pearson of Anamia, Minnesota, are also finding them interesting.

I understand Mrs. Anderson will write short stories for Mille Lacs papers soon. She will tell of grand old Mille Lacs Lake forty miles long and twenty miles wide with its beautiful driveway all around, the pretty little villages along its shore, the people, their customs and ways, and the Indians and Indian trading posts.

Old Lake traditions, the grand old forests, the wild beasts, the beautiful blooded dogs, the mystery ship, etc. are waiting for her charmed pen and we are waiting patiently for them as they come closer home and to the dear old lake we love. We hope to find them as interesting as are the Baraboo stories.

If the people in Baraboo today knew Mrs. Anderson, many call her Aunt Rose, I am sure her stories would be even more loved.

IVA PEARSON,

Apartment 2

726 Fifth Street South Minneapolis, Minn.

Thurday August 5,1926 IN BARABOO!

AR EVENING TIME THE CANDLES GLIMMER’D FAIR

As the years went flying past, changes began to be noticeable at the House at the Foot of the Hill; there came a time when we began to put away childish things; we were growing up.

Don Andy began taking care of hands and hair.

No one thought of calling me the “Lump” any longer; I was a slim girls with great dark eyes; those eyes my Aunt Lucy said’; “Were enough to give any one the creeps!”

Olive Jan’s curls had disappeared and most of Don Andy’s freckles. My father’s dark curly hair was graying fast, and mother’s step grew slower day by day. Charles D. was the youngest of the flock.

One beautiful evening in July the doors of the old house were thrown open wide to the young men and maidens of the town in honor of Olive Jane’s eighteenth birthday.

Every one was using lamps at that time, but for that one night, my father decided to use candles only.

In the dining room there still hung over the long table, the queer old fashioned handing lamp with the long glasses hanging from it’s twisted frame, and always making a little inkling noise like sleigh bells far away; but every where else there were candles and roses, and in the locust trees in the front of the house boys were perched trying to see in.

That night the twelve paned window glowed like rubies in the sliver setting of their old white frames with candle light.

I read once, somewhere, that if you were ever in a house entirely lit up by candles that it was like stepping into a fairy palace, and that all who ever came under its spell marvel at the beauty of it. On this memorable occasion the old house was ablaze with candlelight from cellar to garret. Music, flowers and happy faces filled the low rooms and the old door yard.

Two young men of Baraboo, who are now old men now and still live there, danced the ”Boston dim” in the low parlor, while the others crowded around them crying, “Shame on you!” What would they have said of the “Shimmie” or the “Bunny hug?”

It was a dignified, happy little party, but it would have been the death of many of the young people of today.

However every one enjoyed himself hugely and was snug at home by half past twelve in those old home days.

There were times when we began to wonder what lay beyond those old home hills, and to long for a sight of great cities, strange people and places.

Don Andy was the first to leave the home nest. He married a charming little lady whom we all loved dearly.

‘A sweeter woman ne’er drew breath;” said my mother, “than my son’s wife, Elizabeth.”

One by one we went forth from that old home, into a busy world, to anew life, far beyond the old familiar hills.

Olive Jane and I went to homes of our own in the Twin Cities, Charles followed, and after father’s death the old home passed into other hands.

On memory’s walls hang many beautiful pictures of those golden days.

Sometimes a heavy wagon passing by in the night, brings back to me a sound of the old hop wagons, driving into Baraboo, Sunday evening after church, gathering up the hop pickers, or here at the lake, small boats in a row and I’m reminded of a regatta race at Devil’s Lake. Oh, long ago. Or young people dancing together and I remember that I danced too with the young people of our town at the old Unitarian Hall, with the “Social Ten,” in the days when they ran out the “Substantials.” And sometimes too, on moonlight nights the music of a band from Spider Island, the home of a millionaire, comes softly over the waters, and I see again the tall form of Jay Prothero standing on the old Court House steps, leading the Baraboo band.

He was a real musician, and the music he made filled the old town with its sweetness, it crept along the stragglesome old streets, stealing in at the open windows and doors, filling the rose gardens, and the Crawford woods with its beautiful notes, dying away at last in the old dark hills.

Ah! Here at Mille Lacs Lake the honeyed evenings brings a large moon and old rememberings!

“I’ve roamed this old globe over now for many a year And I;ve been from sea to sea; But this is the town that I love best, This is the town for me!”

“Old dreams must still around this old home lie.

And whisper of long summer days gone by.”

Towne

On a beautiful October day, when the leaves were falling and covering the streets of Baraboo with a carpet of old gold and crimson, and just twenty years after the death of my father, Olive Jane and I came back to the old home together.

When the train crossed the railroad bridge at Lyons I cried aloud with joy at the old familiar sound.

How often in the olden time, through stormy nights so fair, had I kept awake and waited for the sharp whistle, for the roar and the rattle of a certain train as it thundered over the bridge.

The continual bunting of the trains making up, the roar and rattle one coming or going, become a part of our lives, we often called to each other in the night. “Old No. is just pulling out.” Or No. is coming into town; and that’s Red Pat’s whistle,” and we gloried in the sounds. And on the day of our home coming, after so many years, the train thundered over the bridge as of old, swept on into the town and came to a halt at the depot, where the BARABOO sign shone over the door. We stepped out upon the platform.

“Home again,” said my sister, softly; “Home again.”

I looked eagerly about me, surely there must be some one in the great crowd about the depot whom we had known in the old days, to welcome us home; but everywhere strange faces met us. We were home again, but we were strangers.

“Over there,” said my sister; “is the old general office, headquarters of Supt. Swineford, and his colored porter, Brooks! And over here the Hoadley House, the old Pratt House and the Captain Cowles

eating house. Let’s walk to the hotel;” said she, ‘ and look at the old homes as we go along and tomorrow when we are rested we will go home.”

So arm in arm we walked the old familiar streets together.

“Was it all a dream, Olive Jane/’ I asked, “and it a dream still that father and mother are not here?”

“Life is mostly a dream any way that you look at it,’ said my practical sister. “Nothing is lasting, everything changes, and it is foolish to look back.”

She was always the stronger one. And I always leaned upon her.

“We are here just for a few days to visit the old town; father and mother are not here,” she said sadly. “We have been gone many years and must expect to find many changes.”

At the Hotel our rooms were ready for us, and they gave us splendid service, but not one familiar face did we see about the place.

The next morning I went out alone looking for the Longley store building. I couldn’t seem to find it. I inquired of a man passing by. “The Gollmar boy’s father,” he said, “bought it for a harness shop years ago and moved it down past the Baptist Church onto a lot near his home.” (Gone! Why, it couldn’t be!) I had worked in the Longley store for over five years. Five joyous, happy years! I went to work as a little helper. Sometimes on the dressmaking side, or at the trimming table, and in the busy season, behind the counter. But I made good. I worked up until some of the prettiest dresses and hats that left the building were the work of my hands. “Gone!” said I to my self again. Why, it seemed as though the whole world was crumbling about me. I crept back to the hotel and Olive Jane laughed at me.

It rained that night and until about three o’clock the next day, then it cleared beautifully and the sun shone again. Just an hour later by olive Jane’s watch we walked over to what we children called in the old days, “our street.” No one thought of calling it the “Avenue” then.

There were many new homes on our street, modern and up to date. But we were not interested in the new homes; we were out to look at the old fashioned ones of our days.

It was like looking upon the faces of old friends; each old home held a story, interesting too, some of them were.

Here in a little white house with the green blinds, I had taken music lessons of the Colonel’s daughter, when I was ten; and over there on the other side of the street in the queer shaped house (still there) once upon a time there dwelt in those cheerful, sunny rooms, three charming girls, and three strong, sturdy boys, and we had often enjoyed high life there with them.

Ellen had been my sister’s dearest girl friend, Frank, the second son, my school boy beau; the little boy to ask my mother for my company to the children’s little parties and plays. We would always remember that pleasant little home, and no girl ever forgets her schoolboy beau. Not long ago I read of his death in the mountains of Arizona.

Strangers were living in the old Parks house, and there were no strawberry blossoms to be seen; now those strawberry belonged to the past, they had bloomed in an old Baraboo garden each summer, when I was just a little school girl.

I had a peculiar habit in those old days, of going to school in one direction and of always changing routes and coming back by a different way. Aunt Lucy wanted to know why I always came and went in different roads.

“Why don’t you keep with the children of this neighborhood? What makes you wander around by yourself? Stop dreaming,’ said she.

“All roads lead to Rome, Lucy,” said father, “she will get home all right if she takes any one of them.”

“Andrew,’ said my aunt, solemnly, “this child is a dreamer. Her head is full of foolishness, about fairies and Irish castles and the likes. She is a firm believer in pixies, goblins and signs. She believes that butterflies can turn themselves into beautiful ladies and that witches are abroad on story nights. All this is making her crazy!”

And I’m sure Aunt Lucy was sincere in her belief!

We rambled a little out of our way, next to look upon an old house where my girl chum had lived so long ago, Alice, she died young. Then back on our street again. At the foot of the hill we tarried long at the old Cowles house, where Deacon Cowles, as he was always called and his wife lived contentedly and quietly for many years.

When we were little children the small pox swept Baraboo in a virulent form and Miles Cowles, a son, had taken it and died in one of those upper rooms. And a man living on the same street, kept and

drove the hearse for a time; we children remembering the death of Miles, and having a healthy fear of a hearse made it a point never to pass that way by night!

Just a little farther on in the queerly built house where the porch sets in, lived the TEN, the nine boys and their one sister, Mary. Things always moved rather swiftly at that place. People always spoke of it as the home of the ten.

It was in one of my wanderings home from school as a child, that I made the acquaintance of the people at the Parks house. I called it the “House of white blossom” afterwards changing its name to “Strawberry Cottage.”

There were beautiful trees in that old yard, and one day as I came past I noticed one part of the lot just covered with small white flowers; I wondered what all those little white blossoms were. There were lots of pretty flowers on one side of the garden, and on the other all those tiny white ones. I hung around. I peeped through the fence. There an old lady sat on a bench, sewing; an old man was puttering about the garden. My curiosity got the better of me and I climbed upon the gate.

“Get off that gate, confound you!” growled the old man. “What do you mean by climbing on my gate? What do you want?”

“If you please, Mr.” said I. “What are all those little white flowers, over there?”

“Strawberries.” Said he.

“Strawberries!” I exclaimed. “Oh, will there be a berry for every blossom?”

“There will be if you youngsters let them along,” said the old man.

I began picking up my books.

The old lad laughed.

“Ask her in, Thomas,” said she, “and let her see the flowers.”

“The Missus says you are to come in,” said the old man, but he was not very gracious about it.

I went in and sat for an hour in the shady garden.

She was a nice little old lady and she talked to me just like I was a grown up, but the old man grumbled and found fault and swore about the boys wanted to steal his apples and berries until the Missus had to speak to him about his language.

“Thomas,” said she, sternly, “that is no way to speak before a child!”

“What makes him behave so badly?” I asked.

“He is not so bad as he looks, dear,” she told me. “You will like him when you know him better.”

He showed me a shot gun that he kept loaded with buckshot for the boys.

“When you get home and tell about the apples, plums and berries in my garden just tell the lads on your street about this gun. Tell them that I’m a crack shot and will fill their legs full of buckshot,. You got any brothers? He asked.

“Two,” I answered.

“I make on doubt,” said he. “That they are just a devilish as the others are, now aren’t they?”

“Don swears some,” said I. “And Charles he stones the poor stray cats.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them!” declared the old man.

The old lady put down her work and laughed.

“A gun is nothing,’ said I, after looking at him for some time. “My father shoots the cannon from sunrise to sunset, every Fourth of July, over in the Court Yard.”

“I know he does,” said the old man. “I know your father, he drives bay ponies.”

“Could you shoot off a cannon?” I asked him.

“I could if I had to,” said the old man, ”but this here gun is just as good for the boys.”

Well, I had vindicated the family honor, I had let this old man know that we were not a race of cowards to be frightened by just a GUN!

“What is your name, dear?’ asked the Missus.

“Eunice Rose, I told her,” and what are your names if you please?”

“Tommy Parks, and the Missus is Mrs. Tommy,” said the old man. “Just plain Tommy and Mrs. Tommy.

I met him on the street when the berries were ripe. “The Missus said she wants to see you about something, so you had better go over and find out what it is.”

I was invited to a strawberry tea. I had made two wonderful friends in that little house. I was not like most children for I loved old people and after so many years I still remember with a warm glow at the heart, Thomas N. Parks and his sweet little old wife, Betty.

When I told the boys on our street about the shot gun, Don Andy offered to buy a new pair of breeches for any boy who would dare to lift those berries!

“Who is Tommy Parks?’ asked father, when I told him about the berries.

“Why, the strawberry man,’ I answered.

“That,” said father, “is Mr. Parks. What are you calling him Tommy for?”

“He told me to,” said I.

“I don’t care if he hid!” said father. “Don’t let me hear you calling him Tommy again.”

“Well, then;” said I, “you make him stop calling me ‘Rose.’ He began it!” And it all came back that day after long years as I looked again at the little house.

At Grandma Turner’s little old one story home there didn’t seem to have been many changes; it looked as it did when I was a little girl, but our dear, good, hard working old Grandmother had been gone for many a year.

She was “Grandma Turner” to every child on the street, and she loved us all; there had been times too, when she had used the strap upon us with a strong and steady hand; and there had been no complaints from our parents either!

I looked at that little house through tears. I always loved the quaint, rambling, old fashioned house with its long low porch, its wooden settee, and rose bushes hugging close to its walls and in a way we seemed to have a claim on it, for it was in that little house that we spent our first night in Baraboo, when we arrived there from Ohio, and I was just a wee baby girl.

When we arrived there in the rocking old stagecoach it was court time. Court had set and every room in the little village was full, and so like Joseph and Mary when they went up from Galilee, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; there had been no room for us at the Inn either, and Grandma Turner had taken us in.

The little house was crowded full before our arrival, with Jack, Mary, Sarah, Will, Joseph, James, Francis and Bernice, their father and mother and grandfather and grandmother, and we all had a very comfortable time there for a few days together.

AND ALL THINGS MUST CHANGE

A tall man stood leaning against a tree, smoking and looking thoughtfully at the little house, and then turning slowly away, he crossed the street and stood hat off, before the home of the priest.

“That is Don Andy!” exclaimed my sister, “He doesn’t see us.”

I never was so glad to see my brother; it seemed that we were gathering home again. We went over to him; Olive Jane calling out.

“Don Andy, when did you arrive, and did you know that we were here?”

“I came in on the 10:45,” he answered. Then added in a quick old boyish way; “Sure, I knew that you were here, that is why I came,” and so after many long years we three, and for the last time, came over into the old home yard together; to find Charles D. walking restlessly back and forth in the old garden.

The pretty iron fence and the clicking little gate was gone and where my mother grew grass pinks and portulacas were piles of broken bottles, old cans and worn out shoes, and a little broken dolly, and I remembering a broken doll of my own in that same old garden, gathered it up in my arms and brought it away with me.

“No one is living her now;” said Olive Jane. “So we may look in at the windows as much as we like,” and “Oh!” she cried, “Why, what has become of the well?” for a rock covered the place where once there had been a well of cool sparkling water, and the whole weight of that rock seemed to rest on my heart!

A man from a nearby house seeing us looking about, came over and asked if we were looking for a house and if you would like to look this one over. He said he thought he could find us a key that would fit.

Don Andy told him that we would like very much to look the house and garden over.

He gave us a key and said; “When you are through with it just please hang it up in the porch.”

After he left us Don unlocked the door and led us in.

Empty rooms, dust and silence greeted us.

“Oh, dear old home of ours!’ I cried aloud.

My brother looked at me and jerked and impatient shoulder; my sister came and took me by the hand.

We visited the chambers first, our own old rooms. Olive Jane went about her room, alert and happy. “Some one,” said she with a laugh, “has been meddling in my room and taken everything away,” and she began to think things back in their old places.

“Right her;” said she, “is where my bedstead belongs and here my dresser, and over here my little dressing table, and over there my rocker and my work stand with the willow basket on it that Mother made for me. Aunt Lucy always shared this room with me. What happy times she and I had together here, and she died long ago.”

(And then we needs must think of her a while, who in her grave doth lie.)

Olive Jane told of delightful little journeys from Baraboo to Freeport, Illinois, that she had often taken with Aunt Lucy when she was a little girl, and of a beautiful white silk dress that she had given her on her eighteenth birthday; of stories and visits in this same low room at evening-time.

“How she could scold!” chuckled Don Andy. “How she did go for us sometimes!”

We remembered the time when Don Andy and I were both down with scarlet fever; Mother had taken the whole care of Don Andy and Aunt Lucy had the care of me. She was a wonderful nurse; I can still remember her pale pretty face above me in the long nights that followed and hear her call me a “poor, little sick girl.”

She never worried about us children when we were well, knowing that we were protected and well cared for, but in times of sickness or sorrow she rose to great heights and her brother’s motherless little children grew up and called her blessed. To them she was always an angel of goodness. She was Justice itself.

It was always a pleasure to look upon her, and my father once compared her to a wonderful painting that he had seen at Montreal, Canada, of “A beautiful woman.”

She spent many years with us in the old home, and scattered much sunshine as she went along. Don had been something terrible to take care of through the fever, he had roared and cried for mother and called for one attention after another until every one was tired out. He wanted the boys in the town to come see him. “Do you want to give them the fever?” asked mother. (He said he did.) He was tired to death of having to stay in bed like some old man, it was making him weak. He wanted to get up long enough to look at his traps in the hills.

“What is a fever, anyway, who’s afraid of a fever?” and he laughed until he grew much worse the night that he heard that John Clark and Crossman were both down with the same sickness.

Father Ryan heard how he was behaving and came over one morning and asked to see “Larry.”

He went up to Don Andy’s room and after rapping went in and closed the door after him. He gave the room the once over at the fighting roosters, the boxing gloves, the punching bag, and at Henan, the bully, then he looked at Don Andy and smiled.

“Faith, Larry,’ said he; “Ye have a fine room; and I’d know that it belonged to you and you were not here!” and Don Andy said long years afterward that he was ashamed for the first time of the things that he kept there.

Father Ryan talked for a long time to Don Andy and on leaving said; “I would not have believed it of you al all. Now let me hear better things of you Larry.”

When the boys of the town heard of the priest’s visit, they got off a joke on Don. They told each other that he had to die, for the priest had been over to prepare him for death, but Don Andy did not hear that until he was able to be out again.

He told all about the priest’s visit years afterwards and on this day of our last visit home he told it again.

(To Be Continued)

Thursday August 12,1926

Next came my little room. It had been such a sunny little room in my childhood, with its woodwork painted a rich cream, and the door a darker cream. There had been pretty curtains at the windows, shelves for my books and trinkets, a small white split bottomed rocker that would be worth a small fortune now, and a little white stand that held two great treasure of mine, one a beautiful china candle stick and the to her a willow basket that my mother had made.

Our mother made such lovely work baskets, for once upon a time when she was a young girls, the gypsies had camped close by her Ohio home, on her father’s land, and began making and selling their

willow work. Grandfather Colton had given them a good sized cheese to teach his little daughter how to make willow baskets, and she much have made hundreds of them, for any girls who ever saw one wanted one. I only know of one left at the present time, and that belongs to a grand daughter, the oldest daughter of Don Andy.

Two pictures which never fade from my memory, hung upon the walls, “Bo-peep,” which Aunt Lucy gave me, greeted me each morning from its little white frame; the other, a “Madonna” that mother bought some where and hung on the opposite wall.

Aunt Lucy groaned when she saw it there, “Electa,” cried she, “Don’t you know that is a CATHOLIC picture?”

“Oh, is it?” asked my staunch little neutral mother, “Well, it is very pretty, Lucy,” and she left it there.

A high post bedstead stood over in one corner with its pretty pink and white bed spread, that had come to us from our mother’s people. Aunt Mary Colton being the family weaver, and a good one with all, wove two beautiful spreads and sent them to Olive Jane and I; if any little girl of the LaMoreaux family, after, I am gone should read this little story (If any little girl ever does read it!) of the old home in the beautiful Baraboo valley! I will leave it to her if it wasn’t a room that any little girl would be proud to call her very own, and was it any wonder that on this day of our last visit home I closed the door of that silent little room sick at heart?

Charles D. and Don had shared the same room in the home days. At the “boy’s room” as Mother called it, Charles R. walked in, stood with hands in pockets, looked about for a few moments and laughed. “I’m not losing any sleep,” said he, “over all this. I’ve gotten so worthless myself that I can’t get along without lights, steam heat, and running water in a room I sleep in. I wouldn’t come back here,’ said he. “I want the best room now or no room at all,” he finished.

Don Andy went into the room alone and closed the door after him and we waited for him for some time.

Of what was he thinking, my brother, alone in the old fashioned room of his boyhood? Was it of lost hopes, buried ambitions and dreams? He never said, but he must have bidden goodbye to many things that afternoon for he never went there again, and when he came out he closed the door carefully nor did he invite us in.

Downstairs we made the rounds together, the kitchen and the summer kitchen, the queer, quaint little pantry and the bathroom. We crowded into that little room together, and laughed for the first time.

“Why?” asked Olive Jane, “was it called a bathroom?”

There was never a bath tub in it; there had been a large wooden tub and a pipe which carried the water off out of doors, but we had to carry it in ourselves, and Mother saw to it that we used plenty of soap; often leading us back by the ear!

The small dining room where Father hung the cane, and the old parlor where we children kinked the knee and sang; “Hail to the Queen!” and at last came mother’s room; how that little east room brought memories of a mother’s love! How we had gone there to her with our sorrows and joys; it was nearly a tragedy when we came home from school to find the door to that room closed, and mother not there; we were panic stricken and filled the low room with cries of: “Oh, where is mother?”

We stood close together, this day, as we had so often in the days when she was with us, silent, each busy with sorrowful thoughts, Don’s face had a tired weary look.

What was it that went whispering softly through the little low room; stirring ever so gently the end of Olive’s veil that it rose and floated slowly upward? What held us there?

Don Andy moved impatiently; “Lots of air coming in at the open window,” said he for the window was wide open to the breeze, just as mother always loved to have it.

He closed it and led us out; closing the door, softly after us.

“I feel,” said Olive Jane, “just as though I had been asleep.”

Often have I wondered why on our last visit home, Don closed all the doors and windows; as a boy he never remembered to close a door after him.

When we were out on the porch again he hung up the key and we wandered about the garden.

Some of my father’s land had been sold off from the old place, making the garden small.

“Nancy Lou;” said my brother, “lies up yonder in the hills by the side of a great rock; I helped to put her there. Wasn’t it queer;” said he, “how one can get to care as much as we children all did for anything as ornery and stubborn as she was?” Then we wandered off upon the hills in search of her grave

and after a time Don Andy found the great gray rock, and once again after many years, three of her old playmates stood beside her grave.

The sun sank down behind the hills; the twilight came on; and we went down again to the old house and sat down in the little narrow porch.

“Lonely and dejected and down at the heel,” said Charles D. looking about the old garden. He was not sentimental. Any place was home to him wherever he hung up his hat, and it had hung up in many queer places.

I said that it was nice to have belonged here, to have been a part of an old home like this once was; I believe that, when you live long in one place as we lived there, all one’s joys dreams and desires become a part of the very timbers of the old house, and if it is really so there must be some of Father’s rugged strength here still and mother’s gentle faithfulness.

“Old dreams must still around this old home lie; and whisper of long summer days gone by.”

A drowsy little bird chirped in the vine above us, “The swallows know that we are home at last.” Said I.

My sister laughed. “How foolish!’ she exclaimed, “Those birds that we knew died long ago; this bird is just one of their descendents.”

Lights began to gleam from the windows of the homes along the street and all at once a bright golden one shown out from a window of the priest’s old study.

“God!’ said Don Andy. “That looks just as it used to when I was a boy and he was there.”

“They are not dead,” I insisted. “They know that we are here.”

“Do you believe that, Don Andy, do you believe that the dead can know?” asked Olive Jane

“It is a large question;” he returned. “Personally I don’t believe much in anything; but it may be that when we die our life just goes back to the Giver;” – then after a brief silence, he said slowly, “I don’t just know that I believe even that.”

“But,” persisted Olive Jane, “Can the dead know?”

“I should like,” said Don Andy, “Father Ryan to know that I respect his memory; that he was right about most things in those old days and I was mistaken.” – then after a time he finished; “I’ve often been sorry;” he said slowly, “and I should like to have him know.”

It was to me as though he was trying to square himself with Father Ryan for some piece of folly in the past, after so many years, and how the old priest would have rejoiced to have heard him.

“The two men,’ said Don Andy, “whom I knew best in my boyhood, or rather the two who knew and understood me best, were Prof. Hobart and Father Ryan; differ they did of course in matters of religious belief, but standing side by side in everything else. Both gentlemen and each genuine real unadulterated men.”

Then after a time he spoke of our good old Uncle John. “And one of the finest friends that a boy can have when he is growing up is an old uncle like he was; he saved me many a caning, helped me out of many a difficult situation and his advice and example were good.”

“He swore,” exclaimed Olive Jane.

My brother’s black eyes glanced at her sharply, and he grunted, then went on as if there had been no interruption. “I never hear a violin without remembering that old cracker box fiddle that he used to play and how at the first draw of the bow the children came on the run and hung on the fence like so many bugs.”

“Give us Cap Jinks, uncle John! They would shout, ‘Play old Leather Britches, Uncle Johnny;now give us the “rocky road to Dublin.”

“Wasn’t it rich?” he said laughing. The way Aunt Lucy put a stop to his playing that fiddle on Sunday. A fiddle, she said was a disgrace to any home. “Low music” she called it, and a fiddler is a suspicious character always; not quite like other people, you know.”

“How I wish,” said my brother, “that she could have lived to her the despised old fiddle played in the churches; why even, Uncle Munson Barnes (our uncle, who used to preach in the old Baptist church right here in Baraboo) has a son (also a preacher) in a St. Paul church, who has it played there each Sunday. Just thing of it!” he chuckled. “One of her own people, too!”

And I, too, used to think that Aunt Lucy knew, and that there must be something sinful about a fiddle; but I have lived to be very proud of one young fiddler of the family who played for the governor and his party; and I have watched the congregation of a fashionable church grow quiet when this same boy set up his music rack drew the bow over a wonderful old violin, while sweet and clear there rang our; “Harken to me, my people” and Ave Maria.”

And sometimes as I listened the church with its dim aisles and its people seemed to fade way, and I was a child again among the blue hills of Baraboo, listening with the others to Uncle John playing, “Leather Britches” in the shade of the locust trees.

Uncle John died just as he had lived; a rollicking happy go lucky. He never had any time or money to give to the church or their preachers, but would give his last cent to the poor and sick, and he had a fine religious creed of his own.

He was the first person that I know of to try to make a “flying ship” as he called it (airoplane) before any one knew very much about anything of that kind. He completed it, too, and it rested for some time upon a platform upon Father’s barn, while he waited for the wind to be just right for flying.

I will never forget how father rolled on the grass and laughed as Uncle John came down to the earth.

“Can you really fly, John?” he asked.

“Certainly,” said my uncle, “but like any other birds of my size, it hurts me some to light!”

‘Oh, John,” said mother, “don’t try to make such foolish things, why, people will surely think that you are crazy!”

“Sure; they always do if you make something that they cannot,” said Uncle John.

“But people can NEVER fly, John,” declared Mother, sadly. “No one can do such an impossible thing.”

“They can’t hey?’ exclaimed he. “That’s all you know about it, Electa,” said he, with great positiveness. “You will see that old sky just full of people flying in every direction soon. No one can shoo fly me about that!”

“Oh, John,” cried mother, “don’t talk so loud; some one might hear you!”

This all troubled Mother, but it was great sport for Father.

Now truly, was not that a prophecy? And so I always say that I saw the very first airoplane of all and that it was made in Baraboo.

And too, that when Prof. Hobart, more than sixty years ago, stretched a white curtain or a card up in the north end of the little library at the old Institute, and from an east window that looked out upon the playgrounds; where the children were playing, pictures came out upon the curtain or card and moved about in the same manner. I always like to think that the beginning of the movie industry, and that it began in Baraboo!

Mack Williams, one of the students at the Institute, son of Major Williams, took me by the hand and led me into the library to see the pictures move. I have always wanted to tell the young people of the family, for whom I am writing this little story of a town among the hills; how there were moving pictures to be seen there sixty years ago; and “Peep wagons;” I wonder if there could be left of the old crowd of the old days, any one who remembers the peep wagons, and their arrival in the little village in its early days.

And never a death in that old pioneer.

We sat long in the little narrow vine covered porch, recalling the past; the stars came out one by one; the moon shone down upon the old home with a silvery radiance. It grew late and Charles D. said that we had better go. As we passed down the street together we turned and looked for the last time at the home of our childhood; and low to our own sad hearts, over the years to come, to that old home among the hills we called a “Hail and Farewell!”

No lights shone out through soft white curtains, no children’s happy voices called each other through the dusky twilight of the little dooryard, and where once the swallows chattered and sang and the humming birds and bumble bees fought for possession of the roses, desolation and loneliness reigned supreme. But once the days and hours had been golden in that faded old house. There had been endless weddings, births and christenings, jolly family reunions and holiday festivities, under its humble roof but never yet has there been a death in that old pioneer. Gone were the feathery lilac and the cherry threes, the snow drop the almond bushes and the roses, all were gone, and of the grand old locust trees, once the pride of the whole neighborhood, only one was left. It stood bowed and aged looking in the front yard awaiting the return of the wanderers, to welcome home the first and rightful owners; but now they are gone also to another country, to a home not made by hands; but always to the one who is left there will remain to the last, a beautiful memory of the days ‘when life in that old house was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, in the olden, golden glory of the days gone by.”

The next morning after our visit to the old house, Don and Charles D. left for the Twin Cities, where at 25th Street and 27th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Don kept a grocery store and where my husband was in company with him.

Princeton, Minnesota

April 13, 1926

Mr. H. E. Cole Baraboo, Wisconsin

Dear Mr. Cole:

I have been wondering if you would be kind enough to hank through the columns of your paper, all those who have written me from the old home town; and say to them, please, that I will answer all letters in order as they came to me. I have had many letters. Some of them were from those I had not known in the home days; and many from those whom I had not known were still there. I have been very pleased to hear from them all. Some have been interested enough in those little stories of mine to as me to give a little history of the LaMoreaux family and to tell exactly how e spell our name. I will try to tell that last in my father’s own words; when someone spoke to him about our queer name:

“Give me your attention please,” said he, “ and I will explain. Understand first of all that I am a Frenchman and proud of it. LaMoreaux is a French name, but yes, very much French indeed. And that in order that it shall be spelled right as my people always spelled it there much always be ze La, ze capital M, and ze x. Comprehendez vous?”

Mother sometimes used the small m. One time my father came home with some papers for mother to sign. “Why are you using the small mm Electa?” said he.

“Oh, what is the use of so may flourishes,’ said mother.

“Make it right!’ said my father, “or not at all!”

Don Andy sometimes used the small m also, but he was aware that it was not right. “It makes the name less conspicuous,” said he, “and people seem to understand it better.”

A young nephew of mine, Ray LaMoreaux of St. Paul, Minn. went overseas during the World War. While there he met a French soldier of the same name.

“I’ll bet you don’t spell it the same way I do,” said Ray. They turned back the waist-band at the top of their trousers and looked then laughed – both wore the telltale La, the capital M, and the x. There were times when we were children that we would have been very glad to have gotten rid of the La, the capital M, and the x; for everyone seemed always to find something down-right funny in the name. We would have traded it willingly for Smith, Brown or Jones, in those old days.

“What’s the La for?” asked the school children.

“That’s French,” said I.

“Well, what you got that great big M there fore?” they asked.

“That’s French, too,” said I.

“What you got that x way our or, the end of such a long name for?” said the little tormentors.

“It isn’t polite to ask so many questions,” said I, “but if you must know, the x is silent.”

“Dad,” said Don Andy, “can’t we change our name for one that everybody won’t be picking on us about all the time?”

“Oh, surely,” agreed father. “But don’t bother me with it. Take it to Washington – go about it legally.”

And one day over town, Don Andy heard some one say that all French names had a meaning. He came tearing home and said to father,” Dad, what does LaMoreaux mean, anyhow?”

Father thought for a moment, and then laughed as he said, “the Lovers.”

“Oh, darn it all to darnation,” said Don Andy.

It was just as bad when Charles D. got old enough to sit up and take notice. “There is something queer about our name,” he said to mother.

“What’s queer about it?’ she asked.

“I dunno’ that’s what I’d like to find out,’ he answered. “I don’t see why we can’t change it.”

Mother suggested, “You might do as your father says ‘take it to Washington.’ “

The LaMoreaux’s

My father, Andrew LaMoreaux, was born at Lyons, France, and came to Montreal, Canada, with his parents in his boyhood. When he was a young man he came over into the states where he met and married my mother, Electa Colton LaMoreaux, daughter of an Ohio farmer living near Cleveland. We came to Baraboo, Wisconsin in 1855 and left there in 1880, coming to Minnesota where we lived for many years in the Twin cities.

Father died in Minneapolis forty-two years ago mother ten years later. They are buried in one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the state, Crystal Cemetery, city of Minneapolis. By their side sleeps my sister, Olive Jane. Don Andy is buried in North Freedom. Charles D. calls Wenatchee, Wash. “home.”

I was born in Chesterland, Ohio, in 1855. Don Andy was four years older than I, and Olive Jane was six years older.

I have been back twice. In the closing chapters of my little story you read how Olive and I came back to the old home twenty years after my father’s death. Professor Kimball and his wife often visited us in the Twin Cities and named one of my children.

Mother’s people were farmers, prosperous American farmers. She was of Scotch-Holland descent. Occasionally one of their family would step out of line taking up some other occupation for a time, but always in order to prosper, back to the land they go. Then in no time you will see them with great herds of cattle, orchards, fields of waving grain, et cetera.

On my father’s side we are the descendants of an old French family, the LaMoreaux’s of Lyons, France. As far back as the records go, they were a family of tradesmen – wine merchants, commission-men – always were, are still. That has been their position in life, and they have held it so far, successfully. And a mighty nice family of young folks – sons and daughters, nephews and nieces – carry the old name along and seem proud of it, and spell it exactly as did their grandfather, and spell it exactly as did their grandfather, Andrew LaMoreaux, of old Baraboo, in those old days; and as his people before him spelled it, with “ze La, ze capital M, and ze x.”

Nothing at all remarkable about all this yet not so bad.

I am not at all surprised that many may have forgotten us. Forty years is a long time and we were not a remarkable family in any way.

I am not a writer by any means as anyone can easily tell, who read those little stories. They are just a remembrance of joyous days and hours, and also, funny little happenings which took place under that old roof so many years ago.

The End