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Show MRS. AUGUSTA TABOR. 219 veloped that these men were stone-cutters and looking for work. My father employed them. In two years from that time Mr. Tabor, who was one of the men, asked my hand in marriage. Another two years passed and in January, 1857, we were married in the room where we first met. " During our engagement he went to Kansas and settled upon one hundred and sixty acres of farming land in Riley county. "On the twenty-fifth of February we left my home in Augusta, Maine, for our new one in Kansas. We made our way to St. Louis, which was the terminus of the railroad, thence to Kansas City on a five day boat. At Kansas City we purchased a yoke of oxen, a wagon, a few farming tools, some seed, took my trunks and started westward. My trip was not very pleasant, for the wind blew disagreeably, as it always does in Kansas. "We arrived at our destination on the nineteenth of April, at 11 a. m. I shall never forget that morning. To add to the desolation of the place the wind took a new start. The cabin stood solitary and alone upon an open prairie. It was built of black-walnut logs, 12x16 feet; not a building, a stone or stick in sight. We had brought two men with us, and how we could all live in that little place was a question I asked myself many times. The only furniture was a No. 7 cook stove, a dilapidated trunk, and a rough bedstead made of poles, on which was an old tick filled with prairie grass. I sat down upon the trunk and cried; I had not been deceived in coming to this place. I knew perfectly well that the country was new, that there were no saw-mills near, and no money in |
