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 outh, Iowa, where we arrived June 6. My uncle was there waiting for us, and took us to his place, seven miles in the country.

After my father saw the land he entered into a deal with his brother making him a part payment on it; his remaining few dollars he saved for improvements. It did not take very long for me to find out that my uncle wasn’t the kind of man I expected him to be, and I began to feel sorry that I came to America. But I remembered what my grandparents had promised me, and wrote them a letter asking them to send me enough money to return to Europe.

Shortly after this my father found out that he could not get a clear title to the land, so an agreement was made in which my uncle was to take the farm back. But he did not have the money my father had paid him, therefore he further agreed with my father that he would send him the money when he needed it in his new home.

My father had a cousin in Butler county, Nebraska, and we calculated on making our new home in that state; so on March 1, 1879, we left Plymouth, Iowa. During all this time I received no answer from my grandparents in Europe, and having no funds of my own whereby I could return to Europe, I had to leave Plymouth with my parents.

We arrived in Butler county on March 3, and father’s cousin located eighty acres of land for us, which father bought, paying part with what money he had left, the balance to be paid after he received his money from my uncle in Plymouth, Iowa.

Hard times now came, and my father’s money which he brought from Europe, amounting to $1000, being all gone, and no work to be got at hand for even small wages, I decided that I was big enough to take care of myself. I had heard that a well-known schoolmate of mine from Europe, three years my senior, was in Douglas county, Nebraska, so I left home for Douglas county to try my own luck. On August 1, 1879, I took the train for Omaha, and on arriving there I had five cents left. You can imagine how I felt, unable to speak English, and no cash in my pocket. But I found my friend, who was working on a farm by the month, five miles west of Omaha.

I stayed at this farm for two weeks, working for my board, before my friend could find me a place to work. He got me a job on another farm for ten dollars a month until spring; after that I got fifteen dollars a month for the whole season on the same farm. By spring I had saved a little money, and owning only one suit of clothes, which I took when I left home and which were now nearly all gone, I was glad to have enough to buy me a new suit. I was now seventeen years of age.

A little later on I received a letter from my parents in Butler county, Neb. They wrote me that they could not get the money my uncle owed them because he had lost everything he had, and that they were forced to leave their farm because they could not get the money to pay for it, and that they had moved into a little sod house. All they had left was one ox team and one cow, and with these they wanted to farm a small piece of land by the sod house. They had no seed nor any money to buy seed with, so they wanted to know if I had any money which I could send them. I had some, but not enough, so I overdrew a little from the farmer for whom I worked and sent the money to my parents.

I also wrote them that it would be better for them if they would move to Omaha, after they harvested their crop, because help was scarce in Omaha.