Finally I yielded to the entreaties of my friends and went down to St. Cloud to stay with friends until the danger should be over. My husband was in the war. One day someone coming from Little Falls said, "There's someone living in your house." "Well," said I, "if anyone can, I can," so back I went. I found an old friend from further up the country there. We joined forces and lived there until the war was over.
One day in war time I looked out of my window and could see Mr. Hall milking his cow in the pasture. It had a rail fence around it. I could see what he could not—some Indians sitting in one of the corners of the fence stretching Sioux scalps over withes. When they finished, they got up all at the same time, giving a blood curdling war-whoop. The cow kicked over the milk and fled bellowing. I think that Mr. Hall made even better time and he never even looked around.
The squaws would often have ear rings made of wire with three cornered pieces of tin dangling all around their ears. It was not how good, but how much, with them. How these Indians ever lived through a winter the way they dressed, I don't see. They wore only leggings, shirts, breech clouts and a blanket. Their legs were no barer than a Scotchman's though. Our Indians used to tuck things in the bosom of their shirt, as well as in their belts. They used to tuck butcher knives in their leggings. If they were ever going to go on a tear and get drunk, when we first came, they would always get my husband to take charge of all their guns and knives.
When the squaws wore mourning, they were all painted black and always slashed themselves with knives.
During the last of the fifties, we never had any money. It would not do you any good if you had for if you took money to the store they would just give you an order for more goods instead of the change. The Red River carts used to camp in that little grove of trees over there. We used to sell them supplies and they would give us English silver money. Once we took some to the store and they were terribly surprised to see money. They could not understand how we came by it. Thought we must have hoarded it, but we told them that it came from the Red River drivers.
Mrs. William J. White—1854.
My husband, Mr. White, started for Lake Addie, Minnesota Territory, in May, to join some friends and take up a claim. Mr. Hoag had named this lake in honor of his daughter. The settlement, if you could call it that, was called Grimshaw Settlement. It is now Brownton. He got up his cabin and began clearing the land. He and his friends did their cooking and only had two meals a day—breakfast at eight and dinner at three. One hot day they had just cooked a big pan of apple sauce and set it out to cool. Some Indians on their way to a war dance at Shakopee came streaking along all painted up. First one and then another plunged his fist in that apple sauce and stuck it down his throat. It must have skinned them all the way down, but not one made a sound, only looked hard when they saw the next one start in.
My husband wrote for me to come to him. I had no pilot, so could not start at once. My boy fell and broke his arm and I thought he was badly hurt inside so I wrote for father to come home. It generally took so long for a letter to go through that when two weeks later I got a chance to go with company, I started, thinking I could get there before the letter would, as they were generally much longer in going than one could travel. When I got on the Northern Belle, a fine boat, one of my children was taken with croup. Dr. N——, a Universalist minister, got off at Dubuque and bought medicine for me. This saved the child, but he was sick all the way. We were stuck in Beef Slough for several days. I never left the cabin as my child needed me, but some time during the first day a boat from St. Paul was stuck there too, so near us that passengers passed from one boat to the other all day. It was only when I got to Hastings, where I had thought to meet my husband that I found he had been on that other stranded boat. Later, I learned that he had spent some time on my boat, but of course, did not know I was there. The letter I had written him had gone straight, as a man who was going to their settlement had taken charge of it from the first. I had to wait six weeks in Hastings until he went clear to Pennsylvania and back. Evangeline wasn't in it with me.
Finally he came and we went on to our new home. I thought I had never seen such wonderful wild flowers. Mr. Grimshaw came after us with his horses. We had supper at his house the night before we got to our home, and I never tasted anything so good—pheasants browned so beautifully and everything else to match. The most wonderful welcome, too, went with that meal.
We passed fields just red with wild strawberries and in places where the land had been cultivated and the grass was sort of low, they grew away up and were large with big clusters, too. We did just revel in them. They were much more spicy than any we had ever eaten. The wild grass grew high as a man's head. When we came in sight of our home, I loved it at once and so did the children. It was in the bend of a little stream with stepping stones across. I knew at once that I had always wanted stepping stones on my place. About two feet from the floor a beam had been set in the whole length of the room. It was roped across and a rough board separated it into two sections. These were our beds and with feather beds and boughs, made a fine sleeping place. Wolves used to howl all around at night but with the stock secure and the home closed up tightly, we were happy. Our walls were plastered with mud and then papered by me with paper that was six cents a roll back east. We made a barrel chair and all kinds of home-made furniture out of packing boxes. Our rooms looked so cozy. Father was a natural furniture maker, though we never knew it before we came here.