Settlers farther down the trail informed us that he was a little flighty and queer; that he could not be induced to stay long in one place, but was always on the move for a more quiet neighborhood!
The road that we reached at this point was formerly traversed by the French and Indian traders between Pembina and the Mississippi, but has not been used much of late years. Striking that, we should have no difficulty in reaching the settlements of the Otter-Tail, forty miles south.
Emigration travels fast. As fires blown by winds sweep through the dried grass of the prairies, so civilization spreads along the frontier.
We reached the settlement on Saturday night, and pitched our tents for the Sabbath. It was a rare treat to these people to come into our camp and hear a sermon from Rev. Dr. Lord. The oldest member of the colony is a woman, now in her eightieth year, with eye undimmed and a countenance remarkably free from the marks of age, who walks with a firm step after fourscore years of labor. Sixty years ago she moved from Lebanon, New Hampshire, a young wife, leaving the valley of the Connecticut for a home in the State of New York, then moving with the great army of emigrants to Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa in succession, and now beginning again in Minnesota. Last year her hair, which had been as white as the purest snow, began to take on its original color, and is now quite dark! There are but few instances on record of such a renewal of youth.
The party have come from central Iowa to make this their future home, preferring the climate of this region, where the changes of temperature are not so sudden and variable. The women and children of the four families lived here alone for six weeks, while the men were away after their stock. Their nearest neighbors are twelve miles distant. On the 4th of July all hands—men, women, and children—travelled forty-five miles to celebrate the day.
"We felt," said one of the women, "that we couldn't get through the year without going somewhere or seeing somebody. It is kinder lonely so far away from folks, and so we went down country to a picnic."
Store, church, and school are all forty miles away, and till recently the nearest saw-mill was sixty miles distant. Now they can get their wheat ground by going forty miles.
The settlement is already blooming with half a dozen children. Other emigrants are coming, and these people are looking forward to next year with hope and confidence, for then they will have a school of their own.
In our march south from Detroit Lake we meet a large number of Chippewa Indians going to the Reservation recently assigned them by the government in one of the fairest sections of Minnesota. Among them we see several women with blue eyes and light hair and fair complexions, who have French blood in their veins, and possibly some of them may have had American fathers. Nearly all of the Indians wear pantaloons and jackets; but here and there we see a brave who is true to his ancestry, who is proud of his lineage and race, and is in all respects a savage, in moccasons, blanket, skunk-skin head-dress, and painted eagle's feathers.
They are friendly, inoffensive, and indolent, and took no part in the late war. They have been in close contact with the whites for a long time, but they do not advance in civilization. All efforts for their elevation are like rain-drops falling on a cabbage-leaf, that roll off and leave it dry. There is little absorption on the part of the Indians except of whiskey, and in that respect their powers are great,—equal to those of the driest toper in Boston or anywhere else devoting all his energies to getting round the Prohibitory Law.