Old Rail Fence Corners. Various
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He sometimes ferried the soldiers over. As he did not answer or get off the house, they fired several shots at him. The bullets spattered all around him. He got down from the house and shot at them several times. After that, my mother was always afraid that they would come and shoot us when father was not home.
I have seen Indians run from Jackson's at sight of a soldier. They were afraid of them always.
My father brought some beautiful pieces of red morocco to Minnesota and the last piece of shoemaking he did, was to make that into little shoes for me. They had low heels such as the children have today.
My sister was married the first day of January in '44. We lived on the Main Road between St. Paul and St. Anthony. It just poured all day, so that none of the guests could come to the wedding. Mr. Jackson did get there on horseback to marry them, but Mrs. Jackson had to stay at home. The bride, who was a beautiful girl, wore a delaine dress of light and dark blue with a large white lace fichu. Her shoes were of blue cloth to match and had six buttons. She wore white kid gloves and white stockings. Her bonnet was flat with roses at the sides and a cape of blue lute-string. The strings were the same. Wasn't she stylish for a girl who was married New Years day in 1844?
The wedding dinner was fish, cranberry sauce and bread and butter.
One day a lot of Sioux Indians who were on their way to fight the Chippewas borrowed my sister's washtub to mix the paint in for painting them up. They got their colored clay from the Bad Lands. They were going to have a dance.
Hole-in-the-Day used to stay all night with us. He always seemed to be a friend of the whites. When the Indians first came to the house, they used to smoke the peace pipe with us, but later, they never did.
Bears and wolves were very plentiful. We had an outdoor summer kitchen where we kept a barrel of pork. One night a bear got in there and made such an awful noise that we thought the Indians were on a rampage. We often saw timber wolves about the house. They would come right up to the door and often followed my father home.
A French woman by the name of Mrs. Traverse lived near us. She came from Little Canada. Her husband bought some dried apples as a treat and she served them just as they were. Poor thing! She was very young when her baby came and she used to get wildly homesick. One day, she started to walk to Little Canada carrying her baby. A cold rain came on and she was drenched when she was only half way there. She took cold and died in a few weeks from quick consumption. Strange how so many who had it east, came here and were cured, while she got it here.
In the Spring when the wheat was sprouting, the wild ducks and geese would light in the field and pull it all up. They would seize the little sprouts and jerk the seeds up. They came by battalions. I have seen the fields covered with them. They made a terrible noise when rising in the air. I have seen the sun darkened by the countless myriads of pigeons coming in the spring. They would be talking to each other, making ready to build their nests. In the woods, nothing else could be heard.
We had one wild pair of almost unbroken steers and a yoke of old staid oxen. The only way father could drive the steers was to tie ropes to their horns and then jump in the wagon and let them go. They would run for miles. I was always afraid of them. They were apt to stampede and make trouble in finding them if there was a bad storm. One evening father was away and a bad storm approached. I took the ropes and told mother I was going to tie the oxen. She begged me not to, as she feared they would hurt me. I had a scheme—I opened the front gate and as they came through the partly opened gate, threw the ropes over them and quickly tied them in the barn. The old oxen, I got in without any trouble. I tied them and went to reach in behind one, to close the barn door and bolt it. He was scared and kicked out, knocking me with his shod hoof. I did not get my breath for a long time. The calk of the iron shoe was left sticking in the barn door.
Some drovers stayed near us with a large drove of cattle in '45 or '46. They were on their way to the Red River of the north country. We kept the cattle in our yard and used to milk them. I picked out a cow for Mr. Larpenteur to buy as I had milked them and knew which gave the richest milk. He put her in a poorly fenced barnyard. She was homesick and bellowed terribly. The herd started on and was gone two days when she broke out and followed them and the Larpenteurs never saw her again. They had paid thirty dollars for her.
I was very anxious to see the Falls of St. Anthony so in the summer of 1844, my brother borrowed an old Red River cart and an old horse from Mr. Francis who lived in St. Anthony. He drove it over to our house in the evening. The next day, Sunday, we put a board in for a seat and all three climbed onto it. We drove over and saw the Falls which roared so we could hear them a long way off and were high and grand. We did not see a person either going or coming the six miles although we were on what was called the Main Road.
The French people always kissed all the ladies on the cheek on New Year's day, when they made calls.
In the early day, Irvine built a new house of red brick. A little boy, Alfred Furnell, took a hatchet and went out to play. He got to hewing things and finally hewed a piece about a foot long out of the corner of that red brick house making it look very queer. His father asked him who did it. Unlike George Washington, he could tell a lie and said, "A little nigger boy did it." His father 'tended to the only little boy that was near, regardless of color.
Once there was a Sunday school convention in St. Paul. When lunch was called, Mr. Cressey, the minister, said, "Now, we will go out and have refreshments provided by the young girls who will wait on us. May God bless them, the young men catch them and the devil miss them."
They used to call my sister-in-law, "Sweet Adeline Pratt."
Mrs. Gideon Pond—1843, Ninety years old.
In 1843 in Lac qui Parle, we had a cow. We paid thirty dollars to the Red River men for her. She had short legs and a shaggy black and white coat. She was very gentle. She was supposed to have come from cattle brought to Hudson Bay by the Hudson Bay traders.
In 1843 we visited the Falls of St. Anthony. There was only a little mill there, with a hut for the soldier who guarded it. The Falls were wonderful. I thought I had never seen anything more beautiful. The spray caught the sun and the prismatic colors added to the scene. The roaring could be heard a long way off.
We raised a short eared corn, that was very good and grew abundantly. I have never seen any like it since. Our flour was sent to us from way down the Mississippi. When we got it, it had been wet and was so mouldy that we had to chop it out with an ax. It took so much saleratus to make anything of it. We learned to like wild rice. It grew in the shallow lakes. An Indian would take a canoe and pass along through the rice when it was ripe shaking it into the boat until he had a boat full—then, take it to the shore to dry.
I was out to dinner with Mr. Scofield and his wife who came in '49. It was dark and stormy. Mrs. Scofield was first taken home and then Mr. Scofield started for our home. We soon found we were lost and drove aimlessly around for some time. We came to a rail fence. I said "Perhaps I can find the way". I examined this fence carefully and saw that one of the posts was broken, then said to Mr. Scofield, "I know just where we are now. I noticed this broken post when I was going to meeting Sunday." I soon piloted the expedition home.
In '43 when I was Mrs. Hopkins I was standing with Mrs. Riggs and Mrs. Huggins on the steps of the St. Louis house. The Gideon Ponds were then living in vacant rooms that anyone could occupy in this old hotel. Little three year old Edward Pond was standing with us. He and the little Riggs boy had new straw hats that we had bought of the sutler at the Fort. The wind blew his hat off suddenly. We did not see where it went but we did hear him cry. We could not find it in the tall grass. Mrs. Riggs took her little boy and stood him in the same place and we all watched. When the wind blew his hat off we went where it had blown and sure enough, there lay the other little hat too. The Indians standing around laughed long and loud at this strategy.
Captain Stephen Hanks—1844, Ninety-four years old.
Captain Hanks, now in his ninety-fifth year, hale, hearty, a great joker and droll storyteller, as an own cousin of Abraham Lincoln should be, says: In the spring of 1840,