Christmas in those hard times did not mean to us little pioneer children what it does now. There was no spare money with which to buy presents. We always hung up our stockings, but got nothing in them but a little cheap candy, and perhaps a few raisins. But one year, father determined to give us and the other children of the village a little better Christmas than usual. So he went out to his woods and cut enough fire wood to exchange in St. Cloud for a barrel of apples. Then he divided off one end of our sitting room with a sheet and arranged a puppet show behind it. And with the village children in one end of the room eating apples, and father in the other managing the puppets, we celebrated the day in a very happy way. Mrs. F. Hoefer of Mound was an old settler of Watertown, and gives some interesting information of the prices of food-stuffs after the war, as follows: "Flour was $15 a barrel, wheat was $5 a bushel, potatoes were $2.50 a bushel and calico was thirty-five cents a yard. My husband's salary for that summer season was $5. During the winter months we had barley coffee and pancakes, no bed clothes and no clothes for the children. Our bed quilt was a bear skin. When my first child was six weeks old, I went out washing, walking twelve miles to my work, washing all day and then walking the twelve miles back home again." Ex-Governor Samuel R. Van Sant--1857. My father with his family moved to Illinois in 1837, coming on the "Adventure," on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Like most of the early pioneers he was poor and had to work. Tickets were sold at a less price if the passenger would help to wood the boat; my father took advantage of this proposition. On board as a passenger, was the old Indian Chief, Black Hawk. He was much interested in my little sister and gave her a very fine string of beads. The beads, or a part of them, are still in our family. My father took up a claim near Rock Island on the banks of the Rock River. While there, the family suffered all the privations of early settlers in a new country. Farming was new to him and he did not make a great success of it. He was a ship builder by trade. Once he took a load of pumpkins to town, some twelve or fourteen miles, getting fifty cents for them. On his return he broke his wagon, costing a dollar to repair it. He often said he never felt so poor in all his life, although he lived to be ninety-two years of age. On another occasion we were out of provisions. He made a trip to the old water mill, a few miles distant, to get 50c worth of cornmeal, but the proprietor would not trust him so he had to return home to get a half dollar that had been laid by for a rainy day. He was thus forced to make another trip to secure the purchase; by this time we children were good and hungry.