were fully as happy as in after years when they were possessors of plenty.

A MINNESOTA BLIZZARD.

My first introduction to one was Dec. 12, 1865. I had heard and read of blizzards, but it takes a personal experience to realize what a blizzard means. The conditions of a good blizzard are a lot of light snow and a furious wind. The snow becomes as fine as finest flour, and penetrates the slightest crevice. In an old-fashioned blizzard the snow is so blinding one cannot see anything, and scarcely hear anything, either; it is useless to shout, hoping to be heard, as your voice would be drowned in the awful storm. A light in a window would avail nothing; for it could not be seen. People have been lost and frozen to death only a few rods from their own door; blinded and bewildered by the storm they wandered around and round until exhausted nature gave way, and the poor victim sank down in the snow to rise no more. But those dreadful storms are of the past; the prairies are now dotted with farm houses, villages, towns, and groves, and every house, haystack, and every tree helps to break the force of the wind, until now such storms are no longer common to Minnesota. One must needs go to the Dakotas to enjoy a first-class blizzard.

I would not have the reader think that Minnesota is a region of storms; for it is indeed a land of glorious sunshine. Even in winter, though it is cold, the skies are bright and the air bracing. Minnesota is indeed a goodly land, with broad prairies, great forests, fertile soil, and scattered over its surface are thousands of the most charming lakes imaginable. But I will not try to describe the land of my adoption; for the best I can do would be far short of the reality.

The winter of 1865-66 I chopped cordwood on the Minnesota River, near St. Peter; the following summer I went to Yellow Medicine, where the Indians broke out in their massacre of the whites in 1862. There were still fine brick buildings and great cisterns which the government had built for the Indians. It is a beautiful location, in a fine country, but no Indian is there. His beautiful heritage has passed into the hands of the white man.

I returned to the eastern part of the state in harvest. On my way from Yellow Medicine I was sent ahead on horseback one evening to select