Here their craving land-hunger was satisfied,
and they were naturally proud of their farms and tried to keep them
as neat and clean and well-tilled as gardens. To accomplish this
without the means for hiring help was impossible. Flowers were planted
about the neatly kept log or frame houses; barnyards, granaries, etc.,
were kept in about as neat order as the homes, and the fences and
corn-rows were rigidly straight. But every uncut weed distressed them;
so also did every ungathered ear of grain, and all that was lost by
birds and gophers; and this overcarefulness bred endless work and
worry.
As for money, for many a year there was precious little of it in the
country for anybody. Eggs sold at six cents a dozen in trade, and
five-cent calico was exchanged at twenty-five cents a yard. Wheat
brought fifty cents a bushel in trade. To get cash for it before the
Portage Railway was built, it had to be hauled to Milwaukee, a hundred
miles away. On the other hand, food was abundant,--eggs, chickens,
pigs, cattle, wheat, corn, potatoes, garden vegetables of the best,
and wonderful melons as luxuries.
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