case of the two girls who were carried off and held for a ransom of $1000 a piece, from near the junction of the Platt road and the Steam Wagon road; the latter known also as "cut off" road, about twenty miles east of Kearney. The Government had to pay the Indians that amount to liberate the girls. The girls had been well treated, money being the only object of the capture. but it was always believed that this business was planned more by the white men living with the Indians, than by the Indians themselves.

     A post office was opened at the ranch with Mr. Fouse as postmaster. In the old ranch building was opened the first store in the county, by Thomas Tisdale, and the first school organized in 1870 was held in the same old building.

     Mr. Fouse served in the Mexican and Civil wars, and died Feburary (sic), 25 1898. Mrs. Fouse lives with her daughter Mrs. Deffenbaugh at Blue Vale.

C. A. SONGSTER.

     C. A. Songster came from near the city of Centerville, Appanoose County, Iowa in 1871, and settled on a farm two and a half miles south of Exeter. He brought with him his wife and two children, a girl and a boy, and we are indebted to this boy, now Mr. A. A. (Bert) Songster for the reminiscences here recorded. The father died on April 8, 1898, and is buried in the Exeter cemetery. Bert Songster was only about four years old when they came to Nebraska, and remembers with interest their crossing the Missouri river in a ferry boat to Nebraska City. After they arrived on the claim they lived in a tent until a dug-out was made; after which a sod house was built, and this proved to be a very comfortable home. It was plastered throughout and was warm in winter and cool in summer; which cannot be said of all the up-to-date residences.

     The first school of the district was held in the Songster home. At that time the cattle roamed the prairies at will, and the grass known as the "Bluestem" grew as high as a horse's back, which made it dangerous for children if they strayed from the house. The chief bird-music was the mournful tones of the prairie chickens, heard usually in the early morning; but these are almost extinct, and, like the antelope, and the deer may soon be a thing of the past.

     Mr. Palmer Lancaster had a blacksmith's shop south of the Songster place, and kept a pet antelope, which was especially interesting to the children of the neighborhood. It would follow him to town, where it was sometimes frightened by the dogs, and would then run off at a lively rate and make it's way home.

     The prairie dogs were numerous then; there was a dog town one mile south west of Exeter which was for a long time a source of interest, but the dogs suddenly disappeared, having gone in one night, and no one knows why or where they went.

     Mr. Songster Sr., hauled lumber for the first house and store owned by Dr. H. G. Smith. A little girl of the family was one of the first children that died and was buried in the Exeter cemetery.

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W. H. TAYLOR.

     W. H. Taylor was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, a country which has given birth to some of the fairest women and brightest men of modern times. Though not among the very first settlers of any country, he has seen something of pioneer life in both Canada and the United States. At the age of four years, he with their family left Ireland on a sailing vessel; the voyage lasting eight weeks, during which time most of the family including himself had the smallpox. They arrived in Canada and settled in Carleton County, in what was then an unbroken wilderness; wild animals and Indians being their nearest and most numerous neighbors. In the same county was a Burgh called Byetown, now the beautiful city of Ottawa, the Capitol of the whole dominion of Canada; a country larger than the United States.

     Cutting down trees and clearing off the logs and brush was the bane of pioneer life in Canada, and it was heartbreaking work compared with anything the early settlers of Nebraska had to contend. At the age of sixteen years, he left Canada and came to Seneca County, N. Y., an old settled county whose well tilled fields, fine orchards, and beautiful lakes make it one of the most delightful countries in the world. So he became (as he says) a citizen of the United States by choice and not because of accident of birth, and such people ought to, and usually do, make pretty good citizens. Mr. Taylor says: "People like cabbages, improve by transplanting, and transplanted brawn and brain rule the world." He is proud of the fact of having always been an asset to the country, and never a liability, so he makes no apology to anyone.

     After working by the month on a farm and chopping wood, a chum and he took a wild goose chase west, working as they went, till they crossed the Mississippi at Quincy, 111, their objective point being Leavenworth, Kan., from whence they expected to drive mules across the plains to Salt Lake. They went no further, and within a year Mr. Taylor was glad to find himself back in Seneca County, N. Y., with a very poor opinion of the West.

     Having saved some money he now turned his attention to securing a better education, and being blessed with a retentive memory soon mastered the common branches, and then obtained a higher education in the Waterloo Academy, the Fort Edward Institute, and the Oswego Normal School, teaching school between times.

     It was during this time that Doctor Smith, who had known Mr. Taylor from the time of his coming from Canada, came out to Nebraska and founded the town of Exeter, so when "Horace Smith joined Horace Greely in telling young men to go west," he took the advice and came to Exeter on the last day of April 1879, and on the first day of May had a half interest in the firm of "Smith and Taylor." He was too late to get a homestead, but though he missed the homestead, he lost no time prospecting, and therefore suffered none of the privations some of the homesteaders went through.

     Mrs. Smith very kindly provided him with accommodation in her home, the only dwelling on the townsite; one room and a lean-to, but he had a comfortable bed on a couch behind the cook-stove.

     Mr. J. W. Dolan had just opened a lumber-yard but had his office in the store, he slept on the counter and opened the store in the mornings.

     Mr. Taylor was from the first, delighted with the gently rolling prairie, and never was homesick. It rained the first night of his arrival, and came very near keeping it up for the traditional forty days and forty nights, till the whole country was nearly flooded. In going from the Smith home to the store he would take off his boots and socks, roll up his pants, and wade through the water.

     Some things in the new country seemed strange to him:--the frequency and velocity of the wind storms, and the amount of electricty (sic) in the atmos-

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phere. He had not been long in the store, when a man came and asked if he had seen a stray car go by'? It seems that a box-car with open brakes had been left on the siding at Fairmont, and the wind blew it onto the main track, and it went clear to Dorchester before it was headed off." In the usual thunder storms of those days there was one continuous glare of lightning, and peal after peal of thunder.

     A thing that surprised him in the Pioneers of Exeter, was the ability of some who from appearance did not seem to have much. The county, towns, and school districts had all just been organized, and someone had to fill the offices; so nearly every boy or man held an office of some kind. One was Justice of the Peace, another Notary Public, another constable, and some School Officers. A person appointed to an office even if he had no special qualifications, but was of the right stuff, could soon qualify. These people had qualified, and he felt cheap to hear them using legal terms of which he knew nothing. Here is one illustration: -- " When the settlers began to break up the land it was difficult to prevent 'movers' from driving across the plowed ground. Two miles east of Exeter a very youthful looking boy from Maine, was plowing with a team consisting of one ox and a cow, he was barefooted and arrayed in an old straw hat, a cotton shirt, and an old pair of overalls, held by one suspender with nails as buttons; when on the west side of his plowing he saw a 'mover' drive onto the east side. He stopped his team and hailed the man: 'Didn't you see my sign telling you to keep the section line?' 'Yes! but this don't do any harm, and I'm in a hurry' To which he replied, 'I don't care if you are, I can't have people driving over my plowed land, and I want you to go right back and keep the section line!" 'Guess I won't go back now,' said the man. "Well, if you don't I'll have you arrested when you get to Exeter!' 'Where is Exeter?' the man asked in surprise. 'Don't you see that building off to the west?' 'That's Exeter is it?' Then, who will arrest me?' 'I will, I am the constable!' Then with a look of contempt, the man replied, 'A H---- of a looking constable you are! Get up ponies!' and he drove on and was not arrested, but no one enjoyed the joke more than Fred Sturtevant the boy constable.

     Most pioneers have some 'snake stories,' but candor compells him to say, that, although a great walker, and he had wandered over the prairies at all times of the year, he has never seen a live rattle snake.

     He just missed the April storm of 1873, but has had some experiences with Nebraska blizzards; one he is not likely to forget:

     A party was being held at Walter Doyel's five or six miles north east of Exeter, Mr. Dolan and he being invited. It had been a beautiful mild January day, and they hired a team and lumber wagon and started a little after dark for the house. Mr. Taylor did not know the way, but Dolan claimed he did. A gentle snow from the south began to fall soon after they started, and soon the wind whipped around to the north, and they were in a blizzard; they were soon chilled to the marrow, and could hardly see the horses and got completely lost somewhere along Indian creek. He fears he said some uncomlimentary things to Dolan for taking him out on the prairie and losing him, but finding that Dolan's hands got cold and numb, he took the lines and drove he knows not where; but after what seemed a long time, he spied a light and drove straight for it; and it happened to be Doyel's house. He often wonders bow many have been lost either in a forest or on a prairie? A person loses all sense of direction; hardly knows 'straight up,' and can scarcely believe his own eyes when he comes to familiar scenes. Having been lost in a wood in Canada with night coming on, with bears, wolves, and panthers at no great distance, and again after dark in a blizzard on Nebraska's plains; he can testify that it is not an agreeable sensation.

     But, "Sweet is pleasure after pain." when they got into the house, the dance was in full swing, and the discomforts of the trip were soon forgotten,

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especially as this was where he first met the girl who has been the partner of his joys and sorrows ever since.

     He had once an Indian Scare: It was in the fall of 1873, the first telegraph operator had come to the office, and he was a man who never made anything less in the telling. On Saturday the news came over the wire, that the Indians were on the 'war path' and had committed some depredations, and had killed a few homesteaders about seventy five or one hundred miles west of Exeter, and the agent said they were headed this way.

     On Sunday evening the agent and most of the men folk were scattered in different directions; visiting their best girls. Will Dolan and Taylor being the only able-bodied men left in town, the rest being women and children. As they were eating supper by lamplight, the talk drifted mostly to Indians and the probability of their coming to Exeter. The Indian stories went around the table, when all at once a big Indian stuck his face right up against the window, then he with his squaw came in and said, How! and, shaking hands all round, asked for something to cat. They naturally thought these two were the forerunners of the whole tribe, so Dolan and Taylor went out to reconnoiter, and every dog in the vicinity was barking. Taylor had a revolver, and Dolan had an old army musket, but there was nothing in the store larger than No. 9 shot. There was some bar lead, and this they hammered out and cut into slugs. Dolan armed with the old musket, and Taylor with the revolver and a corn-knife did valient picket duty most of the night.

     In the morning the old Indian and his squaw called and were again supplied with food, and so ended the Indian scare.

     Mr. Taylor says: "I had been used to Indians in Canada where they had the reputation of being truthful. honest, and civil; no one in Canada thought of having any fear of Indians. When only seven or eight years old I was often the only man (?) about the place, and we slept soundly with dozens of Indians camped across a narrow stream from our shanty. When I came to the United States I was surprised to hear them spoken of as being dishonest, treacherous, and deceitful. It was simply a reflection of treatment. It is easy and popular to find fault with the English Government, (and it has faults in plenty) but the way England has always treated the Red man and Black man stands out in happy contrast to the way those people have been treated by any other nation."

      An important contribution to the enjoyment, and a relief to the monotony of the early pioneer life in Exeter, was a Lyceum, started in the fall of 1873. The members were all green alike at the business, and no doubt many silly things were said and done, but this 'Lyceum' and the Evening Post gave something to talk about, and something to look forward to with pleasure. Strange too, how many of the members drifted into Poetry (Rhyme). "The oldest cradles of the race were rocked to poet's rhyme."

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THE PIONEERS.

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We praise the sturdy pioneer;

   The "Pathfinder" of early days,

For the rich blessings we find here,

   Since he fought up through newer ways.

The desert blossoms as the rose,

   The plains are farms now, as we see,

So let us all remember those

   Who came in '70, 1, 2, 3.

From eastern lands and homes they come

   With hope and courage in their mien,

They build their sod, or dug-out home,

   They sow their corn where grass had been,

Nor cared they for the lonesome days,

   Though all their friends were far away,

They planned their lives to newer ways,

   And all dark fears sought to allay.

The wolf or coyote roamed around,

   Filling the air with their sad cry,

The snakes and squirrels on the ground.

   The new intruders would defy.

Then oft the Indian vexed at heart,

   To see his game both doomed and dead;

Was led to act a viler part,

   Through which some pioneers bled,

The pioneers of the dawn,

   In spite of blizzard, fire and foe,

All pointed to a brighter morn,

   To richer days they all should know;

When "soddies" would all be erased;

    When peace would follow up the plough,

And towns with stately homes be placed

    With blessings, which are ours now.

     G. R. McKeith.

REASONS FOR THE BRITISH EMIGRATION.

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BY REV. CAREY J. SEVELL,

     It may be interesting to place on record some of the reasons for the presence of large numbers of "British-born" people in this State, many of whom are found in the immediate neighborhood.

     Benjamin Disraeli, one time prime minister of England, who never took a sympathetic look at the sufferings of those warm hearted and generous Irish people; told the House of Commons that "the reason of the misery and discontentedness of the Irish was the fact that Ireland was surrounded by a melancholy ocean," which was a libel upon one of the most beautiful spots of the world, and the delight of summer tourists.

     Well has it been called "The Emerald Island," so beautifully green are her pastures, and so fruitful her soil that no butter is so good as the Irish, and no bacon so excellent as that which bears the Hibernian brand. No! It

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was not "the melancholy ocean," it was the deep poverty of her people induced by absentee landlords and their local agents too ready to carry out their unreasonable behests.

     The disease was "land hunger," the life and labor spent without hope of ever owning for themselves a bit of "God's-out-of-doors," and having to live in dwellings that were a disgrace to civilization - Hence their desire to get a better country and their quick response to the friendly invitation of Uncle Sam.

     The same difficulties obtain to a serious extent in Scotland. The case of Scotland shows the same longings on the part of farm workers and tenent farmers for better conditions. The eviction, some years back, of the Crofters peasant agriculturalists, who, for many years had lived a quiet, contented life in their small holdings which from father to son they had cultivated for generations, and who were ruthlessly turned adrift and the land suffered to go uncultivated because it was more profitable to create a wilderness for the grouse that wealthy aristocrats of England and America might use these acres for their noble sport, created great indignation.

     Scotland was the country where former governments looked for their tallest and finest soldiers; but today, alas! There is a poor supply of those kilted giants, for along the years the United States and Canada have been enriched by the incomimg of these the choicest sons of the soil, and they have made a happy exchange of countries.

     I received from an old friend, the Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Martin, pastor of the Adelaide-place Baptist Church, Glasgow, a letter in which he says: "I have now been twenty three years in my Glasgow pastorate and have had much blessing in my work, having received no less than 715 members in that time. The church does not increase, always about 550 members, death and emigration taking so many away every year. The latter cause raises a serious question in Scotland now, the population having decreased by 300,000 in ten years since the census of 1901, in this interesting, but small country."

     But when we come to England we are confronted with laws and customs that for many years have operated against the farm hands and the tenent farmer. Seeing that land that was not cultivated was not taxed, it encouraged the owners of immense tracts of land in letting it remain with out cultivation as it would enable them to enjoy to the uttermost their sport in shooting and bunting, and the entertainment of their friends, thus adding to their social and political prestige, regardless of the fact of the fruitfulness of the English soil, and the dependance of the country for it bread upon supplies from other lands.

     The condition of the agricultural worker has been a standing evil for many years although it is now not quite so bad as it used to be, and yet it is a perplexing problem to thoughtful people how a man can keep wife and family upon four dollars a week, but (illegible - over half a line)... he gets.

     Can you wonder that when such conditions prevailed and these sons of hopeless toil heard of the land across the Atlantic where with ordinary care and industry they would be able to satisfy the natural craving of their hearts for fair wages and a chance in a few years to possess acres of soil which they could call their own - "a good land and a large," and under a Government that recognized the scripture doctrine that while "The Heavens even the Heaven of Heavens are the Lord's, yet the earth he hath given to the children of men," and were doing their best to bring the land and the toiler together, is it any wonder that multitudes would hear that call as they have done to the benefit of themselves and the land of their adoption.

     But when we come to England itself, we find a country which with so much in its government that is excellent, yet, has for generations retained upon its statute books laws more adapted to feudal times than to the demands and aspirations of the present age; and also unwritten laws or cus-

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toms which are in direct opposition to the just requirements of its rural workers and tenant farmers without capital.

     So bad and inadequate are the laws relating to the land that the British Government led by Lloyd George the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had promised before the outbreak of the present war, that the next session of Parliament should be devoted to the work of reform of the land laws, and helping of rural workers and tenant farmers, that the former might enjoy an adequate wage and housing, with such a portion of mother earth as would enable him to keep pigs or a cow, and raise his own vegetables, and that the latter, the tenant farmer, might be able to acquire at a fair price, with the assistance of the government, the land on which he works, fixity of tenure, fair treatment under the game laws, and compensation for improvements in the event of his leaving the land which he is renting.

     Under favorable conditions the many thousands of acres that remain uncultivated would go into cultivation, and in the home fields might be retained sufficient men of that quality that have shown and are showing in this country what the persistent and intelligent agriculturist can do when he has a fair field and no favor.

     It is pleasant to record that something in the right direction has already been effected, and even in Ireland, we are told, that prosperity has begun to appear, and that it is easier to-day to purchase a piece of land than it is in the country from whence they have been governed, but whose government, under the Home Rule Bill (which will soon be operative) will be much more fair and equitable, so that the best results may be expected.

     It is to the credit of the present liberal government that already a sum of money amounting to two million five hundred thousand dollars has been set aside for the eraction (sic) of farm workers cottages, as, at the present time many workers are obliged to walk miles before they can get to their day's work, because of the reluctance of the proprietors of the land to provide suitable homes for the laboring classes, and because, forsooth, it might increase somewhat the amount that they, the owners, might have to pay in taxation!

     "Is there not a cause?" was the question that David put when he expressed his purpose to go and meet in battle the philistine giant.

     And the same question might be asked in view of the millions of Britian's (sic) inhabitants who have left their native land to find in the "land of the brave and home of the free" the life for which they longed.

     Discontented they were at home. and it was a "Divine discontent," and the welcome they received and the advantages they gained well repaid them for the hardships which they endured, and of them it may be truly said, "they came, they saw, they conquered." But still they love the land from whence they came; and much they rejoice in the fact that the old conditions which drive them to these hospitable shores are likely to pass away.

     "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," and the course of events in the old country all tend toward the elimination of those evils under which they suffered. and the consumation of that, which they as lovers of civil and religious liberty desire.

     England never forgets "Punch's" comic cartoon which pictured "Mrs. Gamp" trying to sweep back the waves of the Atlantic ocean with her broom. There comes a time when providence opens up a way through difficulties before deemed insuperable, when to the leading reformers of a nation there comes again the old command, "SPEAK unto the people that they go FORWARD."

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HENRY EBERSTEIN

     Henry Eberstein, now of Wichita, Kansas, was born and raised at Kalamazoo, Mich. In the winter 18634, he enlisted in the first Michigan Cavalry, and served in the army of the Potomac under Custer and Sheridan until the close of the war. After the grand review at Washington the Michigan Cavalry Brigade was shipped to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and began the march to Salt Lake City. Other parts of the brigade were sent by another route. During this expedition they protected the "Ben Holliday" overland stage line from the Indians, and when winter came they moved to the city. The Mormons at that time were bitter enemies of the government, and never missed an opportunity to insult the soldiers or the flag. One incident more than others is worth recording.

     One Sunday at the Tabernacle, or "Bee hive" as it was often called, a sermon was preached by Brigham Young - knowing that the colonel of the brigade, Peter Stagg, of Detroit as present - in which he boldly proclaimed: "Brave boys, are they! but a dozen of my women with broomsticks can put the whole regiment to flight."

     It seems the colonel challenged and invited an attack from the broomstick squadron; as the next day he mounted the regiment, strung the column out to a mile in length, and headed it toward the city, which was something unusual. Those who heard the 'talk' the day before 'caught on'. and passed the word along the line, and there was 'fire in the air'. They marched and counter marched the principal streets, with colors flying, and for once the rule of silence in the ranks was suspended. "Danger at the front! danger at the rear! and danger on the flanks!" was shouted. "There she comes! they've got the colonel! the coward won't fight etc. etc." Half the men would have surrendered had the enemy come in sight, the colonel included.

     On March 10, 1866, the men were discharged and became ordinary citizens; they were 2000 miles from home, with nothing but a daily stage coach for transportation. There were no two cent fares or cheap lunch counters in those days, twenty-five cents per mile, and "jump out boys and push up the steep hills." Each new driver soon discovered, however, that the lazy soldiers held his best push for the hill ahead. After turning turtle a few times in the ruts, and a six-horse runaway on the plains caused by a drunken driver, they landed at Atchison, Kansas; nine passengers very much the worse for the thirteen days and nights on the road.

     Two years later, Mr. Eberstein returned to Nebraska, and on May 30, 1870, homesteaded in Glengary township, Fillmore county, then unorganized. The family now consisting of three bachelor brothers, worked and lived together for some time. They built a log house on the claim, rolling the logs up to the place by horse power. Having no funds for glass doors they hung a blanket over the entrance, and one night a rattle snake came in without knocking. A sister, Mrs. Ramsdell and a child, were staying there, and were sleeping on a mattress on the floor and the 'varmit' located itself under head of bed. When the bed was gathered up in the morning 'his snakeship' gave his usual signal of displeasure at being disturbed - the sound of the sister's voice still lingers in their ears.

     Sleeping under these conditions brought bad dreams by night, and homesickness by day - even the chickens being disturbed at night would climb afterwards to a higher limb, the instinct is common.

     They broke prairie with five yoke of oxen hitched to a 24 inch plow, and often argued as to which of the three could "gee, haw" them best. After three or four years of this life, they began to see the disadvantage of not having wife's relations in the east to send supplies, so they started a campaign to change the situation, and in the course of time, in spite of many reverses, their strategy brought them the desired results.

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The advent of the railroads and other monopolies in the west, under the protection of the 'big elephant' began to flourish. The Burlington 'swiped' half of the land along its line for ten miles on either side and wrote a freight schedule that caught poor 'rube' coming and going. To illustrate: An enterprising farmer of Grafton, who thought to 'cut' the elevator trust, loaded and shipped a car of wheat direct to Chicago, but with the returns there came the claim for fifteen dollars more to balance expense charges.

     The price of a pound of coffee at Taylor's pioneer store equalled (sic) the market value of three and a half bushels of corn. If you were prejudiced against burning corn fuel you might 'swap' 150 bushels at Lou Robertson's elevator for a ton of Colorado coal, or you could step over with plenty of collateral and warm your family through the banks at 36%.

     Calamity cronies began to breed and increase in numbers till they became a reckoning factor in politics - a class of office seekers high and low, then as now, like the tumble weed, drifting and shifting with the wind.

     The Henry Eberstein family spent their last winter in Nebraska mining in the snow banks. A long horizontal tunnel was dug to the chicken house, and a short perpendicular shaft onto the haystack. Theirs was a feat of engineering for the times. They could almost oil the windmill standing on a snowbank, and the apple orchard was out of sight. Later in the summer when the 'beautiful' snow had thawed and settled, and the limbs split from the tree trunks had settled also, right then, they also 'settled' as to the time they would leave the country. What was left of the trees had the appearance of mules tails closely clipped, pioneer experiences were heaping up so heavily and crowding so rapidly that they tired under the load, and dropped out of the process. When afterwards reading of school teachers and children freezing to death on the way from school, they wondered if it was foresight or providence that led them out from the wilderness.

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