The first winter here I attended school. The school house was built by popular subscription and was on the site of the present Union School on Broad Street. It was a log structure of one room, and in the middle of this room was a large, square, iron stove. The pupils sat around the room facing the four walls, the desks being wide boards, projecting out from the walls. Miss Sarah Jane Hanna was my first teacher. I came from my home across the prairie, through the snow in the bitter cold of the winter. Oftentimes I broke through the crust of the snow and had a hard time getting out. One of the incidents I remember well while going to school, was about a young Indian whom we called Josh, who pretended he was very anxious to learn English. Most every day he would come to the school, peer in at the windows, shade his eyes with his hand and mutter "A" "B" "C", which would frighten us very much. The education the children received in those days had to be paid for either by their parents or by someone else who picked out a child and paid for his or her tuition. That was how I received my education. My parents were too poor to pay for mine, and a man in town, who had no children volunteered to pay for same. I went to school for a few years on this man's subscription. The first winter was a very cold one and although we were not bothered much by the Indians as yet, they often came begging for something to eat. Although the Indians had never harmed us we were afraid of them. When we came to this country we brought a dog, and when these Indians came begging we took the dog into the house with us and placed him beside the door, where his barking and growling soon frightened them away. They seemed afraid of dogs, as there were very few in this country at that time. One time when father was on his way home he saw an Indian boy who had been thrown from his horse. He picked him up and put him back on his horse and took him to his tepee. Later this same Indian remembered my father's kindness to him by warning us that the Indians were planning an uprising and telling us to leave the country. My father was the first mail carrier through this part of the country. John Marsh and his brother, George Marsh contracted with him to carry the mail, they having previously contracted with the government. He was to carry the mail from Mankato to Sioux City and return. He made his first trip in the summer of 1856. The trip took about three weeks. He made several trips during the summer. His last trip was in the fall of 1856, when he started from here to Sioux City. The government was supposed to have built shacks along his route at regular intervals of about twenty miles, where he could rest and seek shelter during cold weather and storms, but this had been neglected. He often slept under hay stacks, and wherever shelter was afforded.