the company, he being my father's personal friend. My advancement was rapid; not entirely due to my skill and persistency in the work, but the sons of the proprietors went away to college, and, there being no other available man in the shop, I was given the best lathe in the shop before eighteen months of my apprenticeship had expired. It was no easy task to properly do the class of work re-required at that lathe, but, with some indulgence on the part of the foreman and a firm resolution on my part to do the work, I acquitted myself creditably, and all was well, I was proud of my success, naturally, and worked earnestly for a long time to make others proud of me, and was so successful that on Mar. 10, 1880, I pleased her so well that Lillian A. Lippincott married me, at her home in Duquoin.

About seven years after entering the shops I had run the category from holding rivets in a boiler to the best lathe and vise work. Unfortunately, during my last year I had done so much brass-turning that my blood was poisoned by the constant inhalation of the brass dust, and, my life being endangered, physicians recommended an immediate change of climate and the abandonment of the trade. I spent a month or two about St. Paul and Minneapolis, and returned to my home so much improved that I thought with a little caution I could safely engage in the work again, and did so. At the expiration of three months I was again forced to abandon the work. In Mar. following I went to Huron, South Dakota, with the idea that there would be few people there, and one of my kind would be able to pre-empt a claim, make the necessary improvements, and find work of some sort to do while "proving up." There were nearly six hundred other men on the train that took me to Huron, imbued with that same idea. We found upon arrival that all hotels were crowded, and hundreds of men were compelled to sit in the offices, at the station, anywhere, because no beds could be had at any price. While there I learned that a pleasure-boat was being built at Big Stone Lake, and, upon application, I secured a position as engineer for the coming "season": the "season" would last but five months in a year, so I got a position as clerk in a hardware store for the winter. My wife and daughter Nell joined me in July, and ere she had been there for a week my wife was stricken with fever, and for several weeks her life was despaired of; when she grew strong

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