One day I cooked a squash, putting the parings in a swill pail. An old Indian woman came in and made loud cries of dismay when she saw my wastefulness, saying, "Why did you throw this away?" She then gathered them carefully out of the pail and carried them home in her blanket to cook. Pies that were set out on the window sill to cool disappeared also.
This first winter was spent at Lac qui Parle, or Medeiadam, (med-day-e-a-da) "The lake that speaks," in both tongues. I was told that it was so named from a remarkable echo about the lake. I kept house in a little room on the second floor of a log house. Dr. Williamson and his family lived on the lower floor.
One day as I was alone sitting at my table writing, the door of my room opened and a hideously painted Indian came in. His face, as nearly as I can remember, was painted half red and half black with white streaks across. A band around his head contained a number of large feathers, indicating the number of enemies he had killed. He evidently hoped to frighten me terribly. I determined I would try not to let him know how frightened I was. I sat still at my table and kept on with my writing and in a short time he went down stairs again. This Indian was the famous Little Crow, the leader of the outbreak of 1862. Afterwards my second husband, Mr. Pond, tried to teach Little Crow to read music and he told me that he had double teeth all around. Little Crow learned to sing and had a fine voice. He was a fine looking fellow without his paint; tall, slender and strong looking.
In the spring of 1844, April 4, we started on our journey back to Traverse de Sioux. We had a snow storm on the way but reached our new home in peace and safety. This was a one room log cabin with a little attic above. The Indians here were not quite as friendly as those at Lac qui Parle and seemed to wish we had never come among them.
I had a class of all the little Indian girls that I could persuade to come to school. Their parents seemed very much opposed to having their children learn to read, sew, cook or anything else. I think they had an idea that in some way we would be paid for our trouble in teaching them and that it would be to their disadvantage when they sold their land. At any rate only a few girls came to school. In order to make my task of teaching them less unpleasant I provided basins, towels, soap and combs and requested them to use them each day as they came in. Contrary to my expectations they seemed to delight in these morning ablutions, especially if I brought a mirror so they might see themselves.
One of these girls was an especial favorite of mine. She came quite regularly and seemed interested in trying to learn all she could. She was about fifteen years old. The girls had to walk about a mile through the deep snow to reach the school. One day this favorite girl was absent. I asked why she was not there, but the other girls did not know. The next day again she was absent and the other girls told me the reason was because she did not wish to marry a man who had bought her and had three wives already. That day her parents went for food from a store of provisions which they had, leaving her at home to care for the younger children. While they were gone she committed suicide by hanging herself.
The Indian tents were heated by making a fire on the ground in the center, the smoke partially escaping through a hole in the top. On each side of this fire they drove a forked stick into the ground and laying a pole across these sticks hung on it their utensils for cooking. To this pole this poor Indian girl had tied a rope attached to a strap about her neck and, the pole being low, had lifted her feet from the ground and hanged herself rather than marry a man she did not love.
One day when I was alone in my house at Oiyuwega or Traverse de Sioux an Indian man came softly in and sat down by the stove. I soon saw that he was drunk, which frightened me a little. I said nothing to him except to answer his questions because I did not wish to rouse his anger. Presently he reached to the stove and lifted a griddle and I thought he was going to strike me. The griddles on the cook stoves then, each had its handle attached instead of having a separate handle. I slipped out of the door and soon he went away. Later he came back and said, "They tell me I was going to strike you the other day. I was drunk and that is my reason. I would not have done it if I had been sober." I accepted his apology, thinking it a good one for an unlearned Indian.
The treaty between the U. S. government and the Dakota Indians was made in July of 1851. The commissioners of the government three in number, came in June. Their chief was Luke Lee. There were no houses where the white people could be entertained, so they camped in tents on the bluffs of the Minnesota river near an old trading house, occupied at that time by Mr. Le Blanc. The bluff was not an abrupt one, but formed a series of terraces from the river to the summit. The camp was on one of these terraces. There was a scarce fringe of trees along the river but from there to the top and as far back as the eye could see, perhaps for two miles back on the bluff, there was not a bush or tree.
A great many white men assembled, Gov. Ramsey, Gen. Sibley, Hon. H. M. Rice, editors also from some of our newspapers, among them Mr. Goodhue of the Pioneer Press, were there. Traders, too, came to collect debts from the Indians when they should receive the pay for their land. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Chute of St. Anthony came. Accidentally their tent had been left behind and they found a boarding place with me. The Indians were there in great numbers. Many of them were from the far west and these were much more uncouth and savage looking than any who lived around us. Some of their women wore no garment but the skin of animals which formed a skirt reaching from a few inches above the waist to the knee and hung from the shoulders by straps. The Indians pitched their tents on different terraces of the bluff some little distance away from the white people's camp.