INDIAN CANOES SAILING WITH NORTH WIND
Leschi, the leader, threatened to return in a month with his bands and annihilate the place. In view of other possible attacks, a second block house was built and the forest side of the town barricaded.
Fort Decatur was a two-story building, forty feet square; the upper story was partitioned off into small rooms, where a half dozen or more families lived until it was safe or convenient to return to their distant homes. Each had a stove on which to cook, and water was carried from a well inside the stockade.
There were a number of children thus shut in, who enlivened the grim walls with their shifting shadows, awakened mirth by their playfulness or touched the hearts of their elders by their pathos.
Like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy interior was little Sam Neely, a great pet, a sociable, affectionate little fellow, visiting about from corner to corner, always sure of attention and a kindly welcome. The marines from the man-of-war spoiled him without stint. One of the Sergeants gave his mother a half worn uniform, which she skilfully re-made, gold braid, buttons and all, for little Sam. How proud he was, with everybody calling him the “Little Sergeant;” whenever he approached a loquacious group, some one was sure to say, “Well, Sergeant, what’s the news?”
When the day came for the Neely family to move out of the fort, his mother was very busy and meals uncertain.
He finally appealed to a friend, who had before proven herself capable of sympathy, for something to appease his gnawing hunger, and she promptly gave him a bowl of bread and milk. Down he sat and ate with much relish; as he drained the last drop he observed, “I was just so hungry, I didn’t know how hungry I was.”
Poor little Sam was drowned in the Duwampsh River the same year, and buried on its banks.
Laura Bell, a little girl of perhaps ten years, during her stay in the fort exhibited the courage and constancy characterizing even the children in those troublous times.
She did a great part of the work for the family, cared for her younger sisters, prepared and carried food to her sick mother who was heard to say with tender gratitude, “Your dear little hands have brought me almost everything I have had.” Both have passed into the Beyond; one who remembers Laura well says she was a beautiful, bright, rosy cheeked child, pleasant to look upon.