In September I went back to my mother in Ohio with my three little children. Mr. and Mrs. Riggs were going east, too, for a visit, and again I journeyed with them. As there was a large party of us and the American board which paid our expenses was not wealthy, Mr. Riggs thought we ought not to travel first class, so we went in the second class coaches. The seats were hard, like benches. My daughter, Sadie, then two and a half years old, was taken sick and cried and begged for water but there was none. I was in the deepest distress at not being able to give the poor sick little thing a drink. In the night the train stopped somewhere for water and a young man whom I could not remember ever having seen before got off and bought a cup of water for twenty-five cents and gave it to the poor, sick baby. If I have thought of that young man once I have thought hundreds, perhaps thousands of times of him and wished that I could thank him again and tell him what a beautiful thing he did. I remained with my mother till I was married to Mr. Pond in April 1854. Again this northwest became my home. The Indians had sold their land to the government and been sent farther west. The country was filling up with white settlers. Bloomington has been my home ever since. When I came to Bloomington as a bride there were seven motherless children of the first Mrs. Pond, the eldest being about fifteen years old. I brought with me my three fatherless children, so our family numbered twelve. Our home was a log house of six rooms. There were no schools anywhere within our reach. Every morning our children and some of our neighbor's gathered about our long kitchen table which was our dining table as well, for their lessons taught by the mother or one of the older children. There were no sewing machines to make the numerous garments necessary for our family, no lamps, no kerosene. We made our own candles as well as our own bread and butter and cheese and soap. Our lives were as busy as lives could be. In the summer of 1856 we made bricks on our own place with which we built the house where I have lived ever since. Mr. McLeod was our nearest neighbor. North of us I cannot remember that we had any nearer than Minneapolis. Down toward Fort Snelling lived Mr. Quinn in a little bit of a house.