. Pioneer sketches, Nebraska and Texas. siarted fiom near Otomway, Iowa, witha good team of horses and a few cattle, and larded at Beat-rice in the latter part of September, 1872, where we winter-ed, as they said there was nothing to do for a living fartherwest. During our stay in Beatrice, father hauled rock for someof the best buildings there. He paid $300 for the right of a homestead to C. J. Ja-cobs, Alfred Harsis father-in-law. Then we traded for twoyoke of oxen to begin life right in the West. We arrived at our homestead in Nuckolls county, May10, 1873. There were ten acres of broken lan
. Pioneer sketches, Nebraska and Texas. siarted fiom near Otomway, Iowa, witha good team of horses and a few cattle, and larded at Beat-rice in the latter part of September, 1872, where we winter-ed, as they said there was nothing to do for a living fartherwest. During our stay in Beatrice, father hauled rock for someof the best buildings there. He paid $300 for the right of a homestead to C. J. Ja-cobs, Alfred Harsis father-in-law. Then we traded for twoyoke of oxen to begin life right in the West. We arrived at our homestead in Nuckolls county, May10, 1873. There were ten acres of broken land on the placeand 9x12 *dug-out on the southeast corner of the *dug-out had a half window in the gabled front. Therewere six of us in the family, and we had a bed, stove, tableand several boxes in this 9x12 room. Sister and I slept onthe table, and were always sure of our bed being made. Father had $7 in money to build and do all the improv-ing with, and with which to keep up a sickly wife and a fam-ily of helpless ptoncec Shetcbee. 5 His machinery consisted of a wagon, breaking plow,harrow, scythe, axe, hoe and a li-inch auger. Our nearest neighbor on the east was Alfred Harris,two miles; on the north, Mr. Alender, one and a half miles;on the west they said twenty miles—but we never saw him. We sowed the ten acres in wheat the first year, cut itwith a oradle and threshed it with a flail. Father began to break prairie, and soon the plow bladegot dull. He cold-hammered it out on a piece of railroadrail about eight inches long for an anvil. This did not dovery well, so he built a furnace out of sod in which to heathis lays. He used wood instead of coal to heat them cutter broke and he could not weld it, so he carried itabout twelve miles distant to a man who had a forge andcoal to get it mended. We planted some sod corn. Father took the axe and Ithe corn; he drove the axe through the sod and I dropped inthe corn, and then another lick with the axe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfrontie, bookyear1915
