My brother, C. T. Fulton, was the originator of the colony movement; and he with father, an elder brother, and myself were members. My parents, now past the hale vigor of life, consented to go, providing the location was not chosen too far north, and all the good plans and rules were fully carried out. Father made a tour of the state in 1882, and was much pleased with it, especially central Nebraska. I was anxious to "claim" with the rest that I might have a farm to give to my youngest brother, now too young to enter a claim for himself--claimants must be twenty-one years of age. When he was but twelve years old, I promised that for his abstaining from the use of tobacco and intoxicating drinks in every shape and form, until he was twenty-one years old, I would present him with a watch and chain. The time of the pledge had not yet expired, but he had faithfully kept his promise thus far, and I knew he would unto the end. He had said: "For a gold watch, sister, I will make it good for life;" but now insisted that he did not deserve anything for doing that which was only right he should do; yet I felt it would well repay me for a life pledge did I give him many times the price of a gold watch. What could be better than to put him in possession of 160 acres of rich farming land that, with industry, would yield him an independent living? With all this in view, I entered with a zeal into the spirit of the movement, and with my brothers was ready to go with the rest. As father had served in the late war, his was to be a soldier's claim, which brother Charles, invested with the power of attorney, could select and enter for him. But our well arranged plans were badly spoiled when the location was chosen so far north, and so far from railroads. My parents thought they could not go there, and we children felt we could not go without them, yet they wrote C. and I to go, see for ourselves, and if we thought best they would be with us. When the time of going came C. was unavoidably detained at home, but thought he would be able to join me in a couple of weeks, and as I had friends among the colonists on whom I could depend for care it was decided that I should go. When a little girl of eleven summers I aspired to the writing of a "yellow backed novel," after the pattern of Beadle's dime books, and as a matter of course planned my book from what I had read in other like fiction of the same color. But already tired of reading of perfection I never saw, or heard tell of except in story, my heroes and heroines were to be only common, every-day people, with common names and features. The plan, as near as I can remember, was as follows: