Well I remember the St. Charles hotel as it was when I first boarded there. The beds were upstairs in one room in two rows. Stages were bringing loads of passengers to Minneapolis. They could find no accommodations so no unoccupied bed was safe for its owners. Although my roommate and I were supposed to have lodging and were paying for it, the only safe way was for one to go to bed early before the stage came in and repel all invaders until the other arrived. If the sentry slept at his post the returning scout was often obliged to sleep on the floor, or snuggle comfortably against a stranger sandwiched between them. The strangers who arrived had made a stage coach journey from La Crosse without change and spent two nights sitting erect in the coaches, and were so tired that they went to bed with the chickens. On lucky nights for us they were detained by some accident and got in when the chickens were rising. Nothing was ever stolen and many firm friendships were thus cemented. Our pocketbooks were light, but our hearts were also. It was a combination hard to beat. 1857 was the most stringent year in money that Minnesota has ever known. There was absolutely no money and every store in the territory failed. Everything was paid by order. Captain Isaac Moulton, now of La Crosse, had a dry goods store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold. The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My God woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 in money." Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick--1858, Minneapolis. When I married, my husband had been batching it. In the winter his diet was pork! pork! pork! Mrs. Birmingham, who helped him sometimes, said she bet if all the hogs he ate were stood end to end, they would reach to Fort Snelling. We had a flock of wild geese that we crossed with tame ones. They were the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I would go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk. When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as soon as they saw the horse. They were handsome birds. I used to go to my sister's. She had a boarding house on the East Side. Her boarders were mill workers and "lathers." That is what we used to call the river drivers. They always had a pike pole in their hand. It looked like a lath from a distance, so they got the name of "lathers" from this. [Illustration: GROUP OF CONTRIBUTORS TAKEN AT A PARTY AT THE HOME OF MRS. JAMES T. MORRIS, May 26, 1915