Part 13 (1/2)

In 1858 I built arden The year before I had gone into a clus to the best I hadfine One day I took offit on one of these trees Suddenly my attention was attracted to the sky and I never saw a ently alighting Nothingof the sun on their thousands of gold-bronze wings could be iardens looking as if they had been burned When I went for that vest, they had eaten it all but the seaht--just a skeleton Not a ss left on the trees, either

We people who lived in Minnesota thought there was only one kind of wild grape A er who had been in Russia and was connected with a wine house in Moscow carape vines covering the tallest trees Here he found five distinct varieties of grapes and said one kind would undy He toldwild on allons When it was a year old it was very heady

Edward Eggleston belonged to a debating society in St Peter and was on the successful side in a debate, ”Has Love a Language not Articulate”

He was a Methodist preacher here, but later had charge of a Congregational church in Brooklyn, N Y He said when the Methodists abolished itinerancy and ht the one

In hborhood had the misfortune to drink so a sto However, the child's sto In a short time he was a skeleton indeed

One day his father who carried him around constantly, happened to be by the cohen she was being iven it directly from the cow Great was the father's astonishiven hi was at once ejected The father had a pen made just outside his son's bedroomand the cow kept there, and here iven After several ht in Minnesota just as I was going to sit down to supper my wife told me that a man who had just passed told her that a child that lived ten miles back in the country had drank lye some days before and was expected to die, as he could retain nothing Without waiting to eat my supper I jumped on a horse and made the trip there in record speed This child followed the sasters to get at lye for every house had a leach for thewater drip over hard wood ashes in a barrel A cupful would be taken out and its strength tried If it would hold up an egg it was prime for soap It was clear as tea, if it was left in a cup it was easilythe days when New Ul a second Indian attack and the toas full of refugees, I was ordered to destroy sos on the outskirts I started with a hotel and opened all the straw ticks that had been used for refugees beds and threw the contents all around

I believed all the people had left but thought I would go in every room andto the bed found a small baby that had been tomahawked Its little head was dented in two places I took it with rand frantically and took it from me Its father and ees In the hasty departure it had been overlooked, each one supposing the other had taken it

On the 25th day of August after the massacre of the 22nd, around New Ulm and in that vicinity, a little boy who had saved hirass of the swamps, came into New Ulm and said there were twelve people alive and a number of bodies to be buried sixteena horse and wagon, shot and scalped, but could not tell what had beco with hiuide, buried a nuht the twelve survivors to New Ulh the father's body was found and buried

Later the troopsat an eht This farher land The sentries were ordered to watch the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians ht when the rain fell spasht Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on the horizon and watched it disappear in the grass, then appear and crawl along a fence in his direction He called, ”Who goes there?” at the saun ready to shoot At the answer, ”Winnebago” he fired At that un refused to fire Later he found that the cap had become attached to the hammer and the powder ure to find a white woun had fired she would have been blown to pieces This oman for whom they had looked in the swamp thirty miles away He aroused the troops, who took her in She held out her baby whose hand was partly shot away, but said nothing about herself Later they found that she had been shot through the back and the wound had had no dressing except when she laid down in the streareatest fear had been that the baby would cry, but during all those eight awful days and nights while she lay hidden in the swaht, this baby had never hly fed, it cried incessantly for twelve hours The mother said that for three days the Indians had pursued her with dogs, but she had h the streaht she was approaching a Sioux caoes She would then have welcomed captivity as it seemed that the white people had left the earth and death was inevitable

In May 1857, eggs were selling in St Peter for 6c a dozen, butter at 5c per pound and full grown chickens at 75c a dozen as game was so plentiful

Mrs Jane Sutherland--1856[3]

[Footnote 3: A sister of Mrs Duncan Kennedy]

Mrs Cowan ca At her home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to continue them here She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town, no matter what their situation in life, to come My maiden name was Jane Donnelly and she asked s”--”assist”--as you call it now She had tea and biscuits Flour and tea were both scarce so she warned ive anyone idly adhered to She had the only piano in our part of the country and we all took great pride in it I could sing and play a little in the bosoe Flandrau was our greatshuttle, and sat andas well as any woman

Mrs Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his htyand play while he was there I resisted as long as I could, then was led still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin piping, all the while covered with confusion When I arose we both looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes--just kept right on tatting

Finally Mrs Cowan asked, ”Don't you like e?” He looked up with a far-away look in his eyes and said, ”Yes, martial , for, as Mrs Cowan explained toa fresh pot of tea, ”He is the kindesthe would have said so nice”

Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out there to live The first time I came into toas on a load of wild hay drawn by irl of sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then A few days later he drove past our far to scare away the blackbirds I was beating on a pan and whooping and hollering That finished hiood wife, ”Industry and noise”

During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the ere repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety This ere loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock We often saw the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sohbor's when a new alaret any clothes or tellIt o months before I ever saw rasshopper years e never got any crops at Middle Lake When I say that, I

The first ti wonderful Wheat fields so green and corn way up The new ploughed fields yielded marvelously and this was the first year for ours I went out to the garden about ten o'clock to get the vegetables for dinner and picked peas, string beans, onions and lettuce that were si was as fine as could be I felt so proud of it The men came home to dinner and the talk was all in praise of this new country and the crops While ere talking it gradually darkened The ht in before the storht e opened the door! The sky darkened bycould be seen Everything in that lovely garden was gone By the middle of the afternoon, when they left, the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots eaten Not a leaf on the trees My husband's coat lying outside was riddled Back of the house where they had flown against it they were piled up four feet high They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to hatch and ruin the crops the following year And enough the second for the third, though we did everything The last year the county offered a bounty of three cents a bushel for theh with a net to buy hiet an idea how thick they were from that The rail fences used to look as if they were enorrasshoppers absolutely covered them

We lived only a short distance fro froht our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their home We trusted the Indians and yet we did not They were so different froht they had attacked the family I don't kno I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went When I got there I sawa board fence down A swah that long swae s and when the fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon I don't knohy, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of similar experiences I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the fence

Governor Swift had paid me 500 to er blue” calico and had the dress on When ent into the house mother said, ”What a sha, but in the back there was a hole over twelve inches square burned out

Another ti up wild hay We had several fine stacks of it near the house in the stubble I happened to glance out and saw our neighbor's stacks burning and the fire corabbed a blanket, wet it soaking and dragging that and a great pail of water, made for the stacks I run that wet blanket around the stacks as fast as I could several ti like rabbedsaved the stacks

We had a German hired man that we paid 30 a month for six ood price No such good luck Wheat was 25c a bushel and oats 12-1/2 He hauled grain to market with our ox tea hiswhile he was doing it

How little those who enjoy this state now think what is cost the makers of it!

Mrs Mary Robinson--1856