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scared and crawled under his bed in his sod house. The Indians meant business all right and crawled upon the soddy. He had a rifle and started shooting when they pushed the door in. He killed a Buck and the rest as usual got under cover after a while they tried to lasso the dead Indian with a [lariat?] and finally did from around the corner of the house. If an Indian ever surrendered to another Indian force or a white man he was never allowed to come back to his tribe. That was their custom. The Indians did not bury their dead around there. They wrapped them in blankets and placed the bodies on poles in the trees. We used to go out into the timber and shake down the bones.
One time a runner came by our place shouting 'the Indians are coming, thousands of them.' All through the night I lay awake and when Mother started snoring, I thought we were surrounded. But in the dawn it proved to be a few Mexicans with a herd of range feeder cattle.
We never hear much about how schools were started in pioneer days. Well the settlers around a certain district just got together and arranged to build a sod (usually) school house and find a teacher, who as a rule was a part educated son or daughter, of the community. If necessary they would take turns boarding the teacher and sometimes pay them $15.00 a month. Every body was more or lose poor so in our district in James County as we called it we voted for a tax to be paid direct an personal property, since there was no real estate to tax at the time.
The Early church in James or Furnas County was organized by way of prayer meetings at settlers log or sod houses. We used to take the oxen and and go in the evening, sometimes seven or eight miles. Coming back we would go to sleep and the oxen would find their way home. Later a traveling minister came in and held Sunday Meetings, sometimes in the homes and then in school houses, finally in a newly built church.
One time we had a kind of 4th of July church picnic along the Beaver Creek. The minister was there. A herd of buffalo came along and we made a rush an them and caught a calf. The minister seemed to be in a playful mood and he took the struggling protesting calf into the creek and baptised it 'in the name of the virgin Mary.'
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