To reach the settlement, it was necessary to follow the military road towards Fond du Lac for some distance, and then cross the marsh.  At times, the stream in the middle was swollen, and the traveler was compelled to leave his horse and cross on foot.  This was especially true when the ice was not sufficiently strong to bear up the horse, and such was the condition in which I found it on this occasion.  So, leaving my horse, I hastened to cross the marsh, but when I had reached the middle of the stream, the treacherous ice gave way, and I plunged into the water up to my armpits.  I clambered out, but as the day was intensely cold, I was soon a walking pillar of ice.  I was now on the school house side of the stream, and there seemed to be no alternative but to go on.  I would gladly have found a shelter and a fire elsewhere, but it was out of the question.  So, putting on a bold face, I hastened forward, and found the people in waiting for the minister.  As I entered the school house, with the ice rattling at every movement, my appearance was ridiculous in the extreme.  But not more so than that of the audience.  The faces of that crowd would certainly have been the delight of a painter.  Some of them were agape with surprise and amazement; others were agonized with sympathy for the poor minister; and others still were full of mirth, and would have laughed outright if they had not been in a religious meeting.  As to myself, the whole matter took a mirthful turn.  I had been in church before, when by some queer or grotesque conjunction of affairs, the whole audience lost self control.  I had witnessed mistakes, blunders and accidents that would make even solemnity herself laugh, and remained serenely grave.  But to see myself in the presence of that polite audience, standing at that stove, and turning from side to side, to thaw the icicles from the skirts of my coat, was too much for me.  I confess it was utterly impossible to keep my face in harmony with the character of the pending services.

At Fox Lake, the next point visited, an appointment had been established by my father during the previous year.  The services were now held on Sabbath afternoon in the tavern.  The log house, thus used for the double purpose of a chapel and a tavern, was built with two parts, and might have been called a double house.  The one end was occupied as a sitting-room and the other as a bar-room.  The meetings were held, of course, in the former.  But it was bringing the two kingdoms into close proximity to dispense the Gospel in one end of the house and whisky in the other.  In a short time, a better place was provided, and the meetings were removed to it.

With the better provision for religious services, came also the ministers of other denominations.  We all labored together in harmony, except in one instance, where a conflict of appointments caused a momentary ripple.  My appointment had long been established, and, to the surprise of the people, another appointment was announced by a young store-keeper of the village for the same hour.  The word reached me of this attempt to displace the Methodists, when ten miles distant from the place.