There were three grasshopper years when we never got any crops at Middle Lake. When I say that, I mean just what I say; we got nothing. The first time they came the crops were looking wonderful. Wheat fields so green and corn way up. The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously and this was the first year for ours. I went out to the garden about ten o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans, onions and lettuce that were simply luscious. The tomatoes were setting and everything was as fine as could be. I felt so proud of it. The men came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country and the crops. While we were talking it gradually darkened. The men hastily went out to see if anything should be brought in before the storm. What a sight when we opened the door! The sky darkened by myriads of grasshoppers and no green thing could be seen. Everything in that lovely garden was gone. By the middle of the afternoon, when they left, the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots eaten. Not a leaf on the trees. My husband's coat lying outside was riddled. Back of the house where they had flown against it they were piled up four feet high. They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to hatch and ruin the crops the following year. And enough the second for the third, though we did everything. The last year the county offered a bounty of three cents a bushel for them and my little boy, four years old, caught enough with a net to buy himself a two dollar pair of boots. You can perhaps get an idea how thick they were from that. The rail fences used to look as if they were enormous and bronzed. The grasshoppers absolutely covered them. We lived only a short distance from my father's farm. One afternoon I saw smoke coming from there and could hear explosions like that of cannon. I caught our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their home. We trusted the Indians and yet we did not. They were so different from the whites. I thought they had attacked the family. I don't know how I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went. When I got there I saw my father and mother tearing a board fence down. A swamp on the place was afire and the fire coming through that long swamp grass very rapidly. The swamp had a number of large willows and when the fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon. I don't know why, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of similar experiences. I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the fence. Governor Swift had paid me $5.00 to make him a buffalo coat. I had put it all into "nigger blue" calico and had the dress on. When we went into the house mother said, "What a shame you have spoiled your new dress." I could see nothing wrong, but in the back there was a hole over twelve inches square burned out.