cents a yard, and cotton yarn from $9.00 to $11.00 a bunch. This quantity
of yarn would make only about 25 yards of jeans. Mother did her own
spinning and weaving until some years after the war. We sheared our own
sheep, washed and picked the wool, and sent it to the carding machine,
where it was made into rolls. Then Mother and my older sister, who was
nearly grown, spun the yarn and wove it into jeans and linsey, and also
into flannel and blankets. Mother made all the clothing for the
family--underwear, pants, vests, coats, and even overcoats. I well remember
the old loom and spinning wheel and the little wheel on which I used to
quill for my sister while she wove. Small as I was, I had learned to knit.
I knit mittens for the soldiers, for which I got 50 cents a pair at
Sedalia, the nearest army post, twenty miles away.

In the early part of the war Father was a militiaman. At one time he came
very near being accidently killed in his own orchard by some of his own
men. Some Federal soldiers who were passing came into our orchard, and
seeing Father at a distance, thought he was a Southerner. Father, seeing
his danger, started to run; but one of the soldiers who was near enough to
recognize him, cried, "Cole, don't run or they'll shoot you"; but Father
thought he said, "Cole run or they'll shoot you." Finally they got him to
understand what they meant, and his life was saved.

I am not sure how near to our home actual fighting occurred. There were no
battles fought nearer than Lone Jack. A number of our neighbors, however,
were shot down in their own dooryards by those of the other side. One of
our neighbors who favored the South but who was willing to be anything for
the sake of safety, got fooled three times in one day. When the Confederate
soldiers came along, he thought they were Federals and professed to be a
Union man; and then when the Federal soldiers came by he thought they were
Confederates and told them he favored the South. When his own men came by