“When I saw that she was dead, I could but give myself up to loneliness, to wailing and despair. ‘The last of our family dead, and all of them by tortures inflicted by Indian savages,’ I exclaimed to myself. I went to her and tried to find remaining life, but no pulse, no breath was there. I could but adore the mercy that had so wisely thrown a vail of concealment over these three years of affliction. Had their scenes been mapped out to be read beforehand, and to be received step by step, as they were really meted out to us, no heart could have sustained them.
“I wished and most earnestly desired that I might at once lie down in the same cold, icy embrace that I saw fast stiffening the delicate limbs of that dear sister.
“I reasoned at times, that die I must and soon, and that I had the right to end my sufferings at once, and prevent these savages by cold, cruel neglect, murdering me by the slow tortures of a starvation that had already its score of victims in our village. The only heart that shared my woes was now still, the only heart (as I then supposed) that survived the massacre of seven of our family group was now cold in death, and why should I remain to feel the gnawings of hunger and pain a few days, and then, without any to care for me, unattended and uncared for, lay down and die. At times I resolved to take a morsel of food by stealth, (if it could be found,) and make a desperate attempt to escape.
“There were two, however, who seemed not wholly insensible to my condition, these were the wife and daughter of the chief. They manifested a sympathy that had not gathered about me since the first closing in of the night of my captivity upon me. The Indians, at the direction of the chief, began to make preparations to burn the body of my sister. This, it seemed, I could not endure. I sought a place to weep and pray, and I then tasted the blessedness of realizing that there is One upon whom the heart’s heaviest load can be placed, and He never disappointed me. My dark, suicidal thoughts fled, and I became resigned to my lot. Standing by the corpse, with my eyes fastened on that angel-countenance of Mary Ann, the wife of the chief came to me and gave me to understand that she had by much entreaty, obtained the permission of her lord to give me the privilege of disposing of the dead body as I should choose. This was a great consolation, and I thanked her most earnestly. It lifted a burden from my mind that caused me to weep tears of gratitude, and also to note the finger of that Providence to whom I had fully committed myself, and whom I plainly saw strewing my way with tokens of his kind regards toward me. The chief gave me two blankets, and in these they wrapped the corpse. Orders were then given to two Indians to follow my directions in disposing of the body. I selected a spot in that little garden ground, where I had planted and wept with my dear sister. In this they dug a grave about five feet deep, and into it they gently lowered the remains of my last, my only sister, and closed her last resting-place with the sand. The reader may imagine my feelings, as I stood by that grave. The whole painful past seemed to rush across my mind, as I lingered there. It was the first and only grave in all that valley, and that inclosing my own sister. Around me was a large company of half-dressed, fierce-looking savages, some serious, some mourning, some laughing over this novel method of disposing of the dead; others in breathless silence watched the movements of that dark hour, with a look that seemed to say, ‘This is the way white folks do,’ and exhibiting no feeling or care beyond that. I longed to plant a rose upon her grave, but the Mohaves knew no beauty, and read no lesson in flowers, and so this mournful pleasure was denied me.
“When the excitement of that hour passed, with it seemed to pass my energy and ambition. I was faint and weak, drowsy and languid. I found but little strength from the scant rations dealt out to me. I was rapidly drooping, and becoming more and more anxious to shut my eyes to all about me, and sink to a sweet, untroubled sleep beneath that green carpeted valley. This was the only time in which, without any reserve, I really longed to die, and cease at once to breathe and suffer. That same woman, the wife of the chief, came again to the solace and relief of my destitution and woe. I was now able to walk but little, and had resigned all care and anxiety, and concluded to wait until those burning sensations caused by want of nourishment should consume the last thread of my life, and shut my eyes and senses in the darkness that now hid them from my sister.
“Just at this time this kind woman came to me with some corn gruel in a hollow stone. I marveled to know how she had obtained it. The handful of seed corn that my sister and I had hid in the ground, between two stones, did not come to my mind. But this woman, this Indian woman, had uncovered a part of what she had deposited against spring planting, had ground it to a coarse meal, and of it prepared this gruel for me. I took it, and soon she brought me more. I began to revive. I felt a new life and strength given me by this morsel, and was cheered by the unlooked-for exhibition of sympathy that attended it. She had the discretion to deny the unnatural cravings that had been kindled by the small quantity she brought first, and dealt a little at a time, until within three days I gained a vigor and cheerfulness I had not felt for weeks. She bestowed this kindness in a sly and unobserved manner, and enjoined secrecy upon me, for a reason which the reader can judge. She had done it when some of her own kin were in a starving condition. It waked up a hope within my bosom that reached beyond the immediate kindness. I could not account for it but by looking to that Power in whose hands are the hearts of the savage as well as the civilized man. I gathered a prospect from these unexpected and kindly interpositions, of an ultimate escape from my bondage. It was the hand of God, and I would do violence to the emotions I then felt and still feel, violence to the strong determination I then made to acknowledge all his benefits, if I should neglect this opportunity to give a public, grateful record of my sense of his goodness.
“The woman had buried that corn to keep it from the lazy crowd about her, who would have devoured it in a moment, and in utter recklessness of next year’s reliance. She did it when deaths by starvation and sickness were occurring every day throughout the settlement. Had it not been for her, I must have perished. From this circumstance I learned to chide my hasty judgment against ALL the Indian race, and also, that kindness is not always a stranger to the untutored and untamed bosom. I saw in this that their savageness is as much a fruit of their ignorance as of any want of a susceptibility to feel the throbbings of true humanity, if they could be properly appealed to.
“By my own exertions I was able now to procure a little upon which to nourish my half-starved stomach. By using about half of my seed corn, and getting an occasional small dose of bitter, fermented oth-to-toa soup, I managed to drag my life along to March, 1854. During this month and April I procured a few small roots, at a long distance from the village; also some fish from the lake. I took particular pains to guard the little wheat garden that we had planted the autumn before, and I also planted a few kernels of corn and some melon seeds. Day after day I watched this little ‘mutautea,’ lest the birds might bring upon me another winter like that now passed. In my absence Aespaneo would watch it for me. As the fruit of my care and vigilant watching, I gathered about one half bushel of corn, and about the same quantity of wheat. My melons were destroyed.
“During the growing of this crop, I subsisted principally upon a small root,[1] about the size of a hazel-nut, which I procured by traveling long distances, with fish. Sometimes, after a long and fatiguing search, I would procure a handful of these roots, and, on bringing them to camp, was compelled to divide them with some stout, lazy monsters, who had been sunning themselves all day by the river.