years later their mother died, 1875. Mary Preece was the second person buried from the little Catholic frame church in St. Patrick's cemetery. After her death the children and their father made their home with their grandmother who lived on a farm southeast of the Flannigan Bridge. The children attended the Stirk school two miles east of Battle Creek. Mary Nettie, now in her nineties recently wrote that Mr. Whitla was their teacher. "He was well liked. Edna Richardson and I were his smallest pupils and he was always so kind to us. The Smiths were his pupils, too, Pat, Kate and Mary." The Mr. Whitla referred to was the grandfather of Gordon McIntosh now director of the Madison ASC office in Battle Creek. The Mary Smith mentioned was the grandmother of Vincent Kirby, lawyer in Norfolk and Battle Creek. In the days of the seventies wild game was plentiful, especially small game like wild geese and ducks, prairie chicken, quail and rabbits. If you were a good shot you never need lack fresh meat. The Preeces grew up to be crack shots. It was an interest and skill that persisted throughout their life. When Tim Preece was in his eighties he could clip the head off a gopher digging up the lawn fifty or sixty feet away. When he was eighty eight years old he spent several days hunting on the Bow and Arrow Ranch of his old friend Sam Hudson in Cherry County. In the early days the Preece family living near the Elkhorn River had access to an abundant supply of wild fruit, chokecherries, plums, raspberries, gooseberries and grapes. The family grew sugar cane and made syrup that they used to preserve the fruit for winter use. The boys picked raspberries which they sold for five cents a quart. Mrs. Felix Hale was one of their best customers.

There were annual trips to Sioux City by the family to buy supplies and to visit relation. And in turn there were visits from the relation. There were visits, too, from people stranded on the prairie or from travelers who crossed their land to the shallow ford of the Elkhorn. One evening a man with a team hitched to a light wagon drove to their door. The family helped him feed and water his horses and gave him supper. He brought a heavy robe from the wagon and asked if he could spread it on the floor and spend the night there. In the morning when the family got up the stranger was gone and there was a silver dollar on the table. Later that day there were other visitors, a posse looking for Jesse James. Howard James, a brother of Jesse had been wounded in a shooting fracas in South Dakota. He had escaped and was in hiding. Jesse James on his way to rescue his brother had been recognized and a posse organized for his capture was in pursuit across Nebraska. Whether or not it was Jesse James who had spent the night with them, the Preece family never knew, but the little boys never forgot the pair of handsome revolvers the stranger placed within easy reach when he lay down on the robe to sleep.

An event that a child accepts as commonplace today was in those days something to remember forever. Mary Nettie recalls her first visit to a hotel ninety years ago. There was a circus in Madison twenty miles away. The children and their grandmother were on their way before daylight. But there had been

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