A GRASSHOPPER RAID
By Edna M. Boyle Allen
Perhaps children who live in a pioneer country remember incidents in their early life better than children living in older settled countries. These impressions stand out clearly and in prominence all the rest of their lives.
At least there are several things which happened before I was six years old that are as vivid in my memory as if they had happened but yesterday. Such was the coming of the grasshoppers in 1874, when I was two years old.
My father, Judge Boyle, then owned the block on the north side of Fifth street between I and J streets, in the village of Fairbury. Our house stood where J. A. Westling's house now stands. Near our place passed the stage road to Beatrice. A common remark then was, "We are almost to Fairbury, there is Boyle's house."
Father always had a big garden of sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, etc., and that year it was especially fine.
One day he came rushing home from his office saying, "The grasshoppers are coming." Mother and he hurried to the garden to save all the vegetables possible before the grasshoppers arrived. I put on a little pink sunbonnet of which I was very proud, and went out to watch my parents gather the garden truck as fast as they could and run to the cellar door and toss it down. I jumped up and down thoroughly enjoying the excitement. Finally, the grasshoppers, which were coming from the northwest like a dark cloud, seeming so close, father shut the cellar door before he and mother returned to the garden for another load. They had just filled their arms when the grasshoppers began to drop and not wishing to let any down cellar they threw what vegetables they had on the ground and turned a big wooden wash tub over them. By this time my little pink sunbonnet was covered with big grasshoppers. Mother picked me up in her arms and we hurried into the house. From the north kitchen window we watched every stalk of that garden disappear, even the onions were eaten from the ground.
When father went to get the vegetables from under the wooden tub there wasn't a thing there. The grasshoppers had managed to crawl and dig their way under the edge of that tub.
The only time an Indian ever frightened me was in the fall of 1875. I was used to having the Otoe Indians come to our house. Mother was not afraid of them so of course I was not. Among them was a big fellow called John Little Pipe. The door in the hall of our house had glass in the upper half. One afternoon mother being nearly sick was lying down on the couch and I took my doll trying to keep quiet playing in the hall. Looking up suddenly I saw John stooping and looking in through the glass in the door. I screamed and ran to mother. He didn't like my screaming but followed me into the sitting room and upon seeing mother lying down said, "White lady sick?" Mother was on her feet in a moment. He sat down and after grumbling a while about my screaming he began to beg for a suit of clothes. Mother said, "John, you know well enough you are too large to wear my husband's clothes." Then he wanted something for his squaw and children. Finally mother gave him an old dress of hers. He looked it over critically and asked for goods to patch it where it was worn thin. Grabbing his blanket where it lay across his knees he shook it saying, "Wind, whew, whew." After receiving the patches, he wanted food but mother told him he could not have a thing more and for him to go. He started, but toward the closet he had seen her take the dress from. She said, "You know better than to go to that door. You go out the way you came in." He meekly obeyed. I had seen him many times before and saw him several times afterward but that was the only time I was frightened.