“Above what was necessary for seeding again, there was not one month’s supply when harvest was over. We had gathered less during the summer of ‘musquite,’ and nothing but starvation could be expected. This seemed to throw the sadness of despair upon our condition, and to blot all our faint but fond hopes of reaching our native land. We knew, or thought we knew, that in case of an extremity our portion must be meted out after these voracious, unfeeling idlers had supplied themselves. We had already seen that a calamity or adversity had the effect to make these savages more savage and implacable. I felt more keenly for Mary Ann than myself. She often said (for we were already denied the larger half necessary to satisfy our appetites) that she ‘could not live long without something more to eat.’ She would speak of the plenty that she had at home, and that might now be there, and sometimes would rather chide me for making no attempts to escape. ‘O, if I could only get one dish of bread and milk,’ she would frequently say, ‘I could enjoy it so well!’ They ground their seed between stones, and with water made a mush, and we spent many mournful hours of conversation over our gloomy state as we saw the supply of this tasteless, nauseating ‘musquite mush’ failing, and that the season of our almost sole dependence upon it was yet but begun.
“It was not unfrequent that a death occurred among them by the neglect and laziness so characteristic of the Indian. One day I was out gathering chottatoe, when I was suddenly surprised and frightened by running upon one of the victims of this stupid, barbarous inhumanity. He was a tall, bony Indian of about thirty years. His eye was rather sunken, his visage marred, as if he had passed through extreme hardships. He was lying upon the ground, moaning and rolling from side to side in agony the most acute and intense. I looked upon him, and my heart was moved with pity. Little Mary said, ‘I will go up and find out what ails him.’ On inquiry we soon found that he had been for some time ill, but not so as to become utterly helpless. And not until one of their number is entirely disabled, do they seem to manifest any feeling or concern for him. The physician was called, and soon decided that he was not in the least diseased. He told Mary that nothing ailed him save the want of food; said that he had been unable for some time to procure his food; that his friends devoured any that was brought into camp without dividing it with him; that he had been gradually running down, and now he wanted to die. O there was such dejection, such a forlorn, despairing look written upon his countenance as made an impression upon my mind which is yet vivid and mournful.
“He soon died, and then his father and all his relatives commenced a hideous, barbarous howling and jumping, indicative of the most poignant grief. Whether their sorrowing was a matter of conscience or bereavement, none could tell, but it would improve my opinion of them to believe it originated with the former.
“Such scenes were not far between, and yet these results of their laziness and want of enterprise and humanity, when thickening upon them, had no effect to beget a different policy or elevate them to that life of happiness, thrift, and love which would have prolonged their years, and removed the dismal, gloomy aspect of every-day life among them.
“We were now put upon a stinted allowance, and the restrictions upon us were next to the taking the life of Mary Ann. During the second autumn, and at the time spoken of above, the chief’s wife gave us some seed-grain, corn and wheat, showed us about thirty feet square of ground marked off upon which we might plant it and raise something for ourselves. We planted our wheat, and carefully concealed the handful of corn and melon-seeds to plant in the spring. This we enjoyed very much. It brought to our minds the extended grain-fields that waved about our cottage in Illinois, of the beautiful spring when winter’s ice and chill had departed before the breath of a warmer season, of the May-mornings, when we had gone forth to the plow-fields and followed barefooted in the new-turned furrow, and of the many long days of grain-growing and ripening in which we had watched the daily change in the fields of wheat and oats.
“These hours of plying our fingers (not sewing) in the ground flew quickly by, but not without their tears and forebodings that ere we could gather the results, famine might lay our bodies in the dust. Indeed we could see no means by which we could possibly maintain ourselves to harvest again. Winter, a season of sterility and frozen nights, was fast approaching, and to add to my desolateness, I plainly saw that grief, or want of food, or both, were slowly, and inch by inch, enfeebling and wasting away Mary Ann.
“The Indians said that about sixty miles away there was a ‘Taneta’ (tree) that bore a berry called ‘Oth-to-toa,’ upon which they had subsisted for some time several years before, but it could be reached only by a mountainous and wretched way of sixty miles. Soon a large party made preparations and set out in quest of this ‘life-preserver.’ Many of those accustomed to bear burdens were not able to go. Mary Ann started, but soon gave out and returned. A few Indians accompanied us, but it was a disgrace for them to bear burdens; this was befitting only to squaws and captives. I was commanded to pick up my basket and go with them, and it was only with much pleading I could get them to spare my sister the undertaking when she gave out. I had borne that ‘Chiechuck’ empty and full over many hundred miles, but never over so rugged a way, nor when it seemed so heavy as now.
“We reached the place on the third day, and found the taneta to be a bush, and very much resembling the musquite, only with a much larger leaf. It grew to a height of from five to thirty feet. The berry was much more pleasant to the taste than the musquite; the juice of it, when extracted and mixed with water, was very much like the orange. The tediousness and perils of this trip were very much enlivened with the hope of getting something with which to nourish and prolong the life of Mary. She was very much depressed, and appeared quite ill when I left her.