Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/544

 464 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY camped on a little level spot of the prairie, near the banks of the Znmbro. On the opposite bank from our camp was an exten- sive piece of woods, which came down to the border of the river. This ford was somewhere between the two places since settled and named Zumbrota and Mazeppa. We drove the pins to our tent in a drenching rain and thunder storm. Our beds that night not being conducive to sleep, we had an early breakfast. While some were employed in grading the banks of the stream, others crossed and made an attack on such trees in the woods as would interfere with the passage of a team. We spent several days in clearing a way through these woods. Returning to Hay creek on Friday. Ave put up our tenl near the bend. This creek had not been fished dry of trout, and as Mr. Colvill took more to the department of commissary and cook than the handling of axe, shovel and crowbar, he supplied us with a nice mess of speckled trout for dinner, while the resl of the party worked with a will upon the ravines that led down to the. creek. We spent tin following nighl tenting on that spot. My ardent friends, the mosquitoes, were plentiful and hungry. Ghoosing the least of two evils, we provided a smudge in an iron kettle and tried sleeping in a smoke house, h was not long before a suspicious smell of burnt leather greeted us and aroused us to the fact that avc Avere in danger of a conflagration. One rushed out of the tent with the kettle, and on examination Ave found a hole burned in one of the buffalo robes the size of the bottom of the kettle. Saturday noon found us within fifteen minutes' reach of a a dinner at Red Wing's first class hotel. But the romance of the trip still lingered with us. till Ave had finished up the last delicacies of prairie chicken and trout under some shady oaks near the base of the TAvin bluffs. "Some later settlers may Avish to know Avhat Ave found to do during the long Avinters and Avinter eA'enings, cut off as we were from the rest of the Avorld. We had lyceums, lectures and a literary society paper instead of the opera. We had regular church serAdces, singing schools and occasional merrymakings. The young folks enjoyed sleigh rides in primitive style. I will give a short account of one. Early in the spring of 1855, as the snow was fast melting away, one afternoon Ave thought it would be the last chance of the season for a sleigh ride, so a party was arranged for that evening and the girls invited. A sleighing party then meant a lot of girls and boys piled into a lumber box placed on runners. But in this case, before it was time to start it commenced to rain, and we spent some time in deciding whether to go on runners or Avheels, or Avhether not to go at all. Finally Ave decided to go on Avheels, and by the time Ave had got the box off the runners and back on Avheels and driven around