All Father Bonduel’s adventures had happened, of course, many years before I was born. But so fond were Mama and Papa of him that when I came along, the fourth child, they were still talking about him while I was growing up. He died when I was seven years old, but I liked the stories about him so much that I changed my middle name from Nellis to Bonduel, later on. I was christened Elizabeth Nellis McCourt (which was Mama’s name) at St. Peter’s on Oct. 7, 1854, when I was twelve days old. My religion, so begun, was to stand me in good stead as the years rolled by with their extraordinary story. “Too beautiful to work!” I’m afraid that phrase helped to make me vain, and I already had the upright pride natural to all us McCourts. But there were lots of other things besides vanity and pride instilled into me as I was maturing, too. I would not for the world want to reflect on the bringing-up Papa and Mama gave me. They were truly fine people, respected and admired by the conservative members of the community. Oshkosh, in those days, was a very lively, up-and-coming town. It had been called after Chief Oshkosh, a famous Indian of the Butte des Morts district, whose name in Menominee speech means “brave.” And certainly no town was more brave. It had every grandeur of bravery—the swaggering bravery of the frontier and the spiritual bravery of people who have great faith. The swaggering frontier bravery was all around. It resounded in the dangerous felling of pines, the perilous running of logs, the great lumber barges with their snarling bargemen floating through the middle of the town into beautiful Lake Winnebago. Seventeen sawmills, six shingle mills, and three planing mills buzzed and whirred constantly. In these, many friends and acquaintances were amassing great lumber fortunes. Today the forests have been cut back into the northern part of the state. But at that time Oshkosh was at the outlet of the Wolf pinery. Log runners, tree cutters, millers, shippers—lumbermen of all sorts came into Oshkosh for a good time, with their wages or their pile, and many remained to build homes and settle down. They were a devil-may-care, hearty lot, ruddy-skinned and robust. Hardly any foreigners were among them. Mostly they were enterprising young Americans who had come from farther East to grow up in a new country. Their masculine bravery made a great impression on a young girl’s heart. The spiritual bravery of the place was also magnificent. When I was nineteen and twenty we had those two terrific fires in the town which practically destroyed it. Papa had a clothing and custom-tailoring store at 21 Main street. It was from McCourt & Cameron that most of the fashionable men of the town bought their suits and accessories. I liked to hang around the store to watch them drive up in their smart buggies and toss the reins to a hitching-post boy Papa hired. Nearly always they would stop at the counter before going to the fitting rooms at the rear and say: