that they should fast and strive to obtain some blessing from the Great Spirit, to enable them to protect their people in time of trouble or that they might be blessed with power for good, to be brave and learn the way of the forest, and to be good huntsmen. And he would tell the young girls how to order their lives for happiness, of the sacred marriage state, and of the responsibilities of bearing children. When young persons asked for special stories, the old man would have them fast a day first, or perhaps require them to get an especially good fire log and place it in the fire. This was done of course to impress the young mind.

Fasting was encouraged at all times. It is said that oftentimes the old man would offer a young boy food and a piece of charcoal at the same time. Should the boy reach out and take the food, the old man would punish him and blacken his face with the charcoal and send him out. The object of this was to create a lowly spirit in the boy, as they believed the Great Spirit would not bless any one in a proud state of mind. The face is always blackened with wood charcoal when fasting. It often happens that many would be out fasting at the same time, and it was customary for all to sing a song or a chant of praise, or pray to the spirits. This always occurs about dusk. Fasting is always done in seclusion; so on a quiet evening, when all in the village is still, a cry from the hills of a loved one who perhaps has been fasting in the distance for several days, and whose ordeal has been so severe as to reduce his strength, may be heard, in a weak and pitiful voice. The cry of one seeking a blessing in supplication to the spirits might start another in a distant part of the hills, and so on until many are wailing together. And in the lodge when the parents and younger brothers and sisters at home heard the voice of sons and brothers calling weakly in the distance, the family circle would be greatly moved and the mother, the first to show her emotion, would allow a silent

tear to roll down her cheek, and then the sisters; and finally, unable to restrain themselves, mother and sisters would burst out weeping in the monotone characteristic of Indian women. The father would bow his head in pity for his son, for he knew all the struggles and sorrows that must be endured in seeking a great blessing. It is said that very frequently the whole village would be aroused by the cry to the Great Spirit.'

"A quite similar practice of Negroes in the black belt of the South has come under my personal observation. It is said of these night-time, errant suppliants that they are "gone seekin"." Like habits among the Hebrews are chronicled in both testaments of the Bible.-ED.

WOMEN OF TERRITORIAL NEBRASKA

BY MRS. KITTIE (SAMUEL W.) MCGREW

In accepting the invitation to write something of the pioneer women and the home life of Nebraska, I regret the lack of a general personal knowledge of my subjects throughout the territory. However, the characteristic qualities of the two or three intimate friends of my child. hood and of later years, of whom I have chosen to write, may in a measure represent the courage, integrity, and intense womanliness of their class.

Always eager and daring, the man has fared forth to spy out the new land, and the woman, loving, fearful, yet hopeful, has been at his side. How well and nobly the women of Nebraska have borne the tasks and burdens incident to life in a new country, is "as a tale that is told." Some of them had been daintily reared and well educated in their eastern homes; but, daring danger and privation, they gladly and hopefully accompanied father, husband, brother or lover.

The first white woman to settle in Nemaha county or southeastern Nebraska was Mrs. Thomas B. Edwards, who came with her husband and a few men from Oregon, Holt county, Missouri. Richard Brown, the first settler, came from the same locality a few weeks prior on August 29, 1854. Mr. Edwards was a carpenter and a preacher of the Christian faith. Husband and wife were alike zealous in the cause of their church, and they ministered to all sorts and conditions. For more than a year there was no physician in the locality or nearer than Oregon, Missouri, fifty miles southeast. The change of climate and water and the intensely cold winter weather caused much suffering, sickness, and some deaths. The skill and simple, homely reme

dies of Mrs. Edwards were in urgent demand, and often hers was the only hand to bring comfort, help or cheer in time of severe illness or deep sorrow. At births or deaths alike, her presence was sought and, at whatever personal inconvenience, seldom denied. With a highly sympathetic nature, fine physique, indomitable courage and a heart overflowing with love for her Master's cause, Mrs. Edwards was an ideal pioneer woman. Long hours of patient, watchful care, sleepless nights, and toilsome days were her lot through many years. She was the mother of seven children, some of them residents of Nemaha county now. Her mind and body well preserved until the last illness of a few weeks' duration, she died in 1907.

Mr. Edwards helped to build some of the first log houses in Brownville. I distinctly remember the interior of one log cabin, built in 1855 and superior in many ways to the majority in the locality. My parents lived in this cabin for more than a year. The main room was about 14x18, and besides there was a lean-to or shed kitchen and a loft. A ladder served as stairway. The floors were of newly sawed cottonwood boards. At one end of the room was a huge fireplace made of rough stone plastered with clay. The walls were entirely covered with newspapers, the corners lapped and each secured by a tack driven through a half-inch square of red flannel. This device not only held the paper more firmly in its place; the bright bits of flannel added to the attractiveness of the room. In one corner a big four-poster cord bedstead, with plethoric grass tick surmounted by a fat feather bed dressed in a hand-woven counterpane, or often a gay patchwork quilt, was a sight fearful and wonderful to behold. A little walnut stool stood near the head of the bed without which it would be a difficult scramble to reach the top of the structure. Underneath the four-poster there was a convenient trundle-bed that was pulled out in the evening for the children, or often the grown-ups would sleep there if company came. The floor was gay with braided rugs. A tall walnut

bureau, a large chest of cherry wood, a few wooden rockers and some split-bottom hickory chairs completed the main furnishings, and a tall eight-day clock ticked "merrily the minutes away." On the bureau tall candlesticks of brass held homemade tallow candles molded by the careful housewife. The bureau, chest and candle-molds are cherished possessions today.

The kitchen was a very attractive place, with a good stove and other conveniences not usually found in the pioneer cabins. Its walls were hung with strings of red peppers, mangoes, popcorn and some choice seed corn tied together with the husks and slipped on slender sticks. A great variety of gourds hung from wooden pegs driven into the walls. Some of the gourds were used for dipping water and some, with openings near the slender handles, held rice, dried corn, berries or other household necessities and made fine receptacles. A sputtering two-lipped grease lamp, with cotton flannel wick, or perhaps candle wicking, gave a fitful and feeble light.

Wild game was plentiful. There were turkeys, deer, geese, ducks, an occasional buffalo, prairie chickens, and quails. Wild grapes, plums, crab-apples, gooseberries, and other fruits gave variety to the fare. Occasionally a bee tree gave up a rich store of honey, and sorghum molasses was a not unimportant provision in the larder of the thrifty housewife.

In the yard were a well with a long wooden beam, or sweep, from which hung a chain and the old oaken bucket, a gourd dipper conveniently near, and a huge excavated log for a watering trough. Nearby was the great ash leach or hopper where the lye could be run off into the log trough to be made into a choice brand of soft soap. Near the kitchen door stood a split log bench where the family might have the tin basin for an early morning wash. There were great iron or copper kettles, suspended on poles or forked sticks, which were used in making soap and hominy and for heating water for the family washing and for