Old Rail Fence Corners | Page 6

most complete. We lived there that winter and Mr. Furnell and some others boarded with us. A romance was started there.
The next Spring we took our household goods in a cabin built on a raft, floated down to Nauvoo and sold the lumber to the Mormons. Joseph Smith was a smart speaker, mother said, when she responded to the invitation to hear the "Prophet of the Most High God" preach. The children of these people were the raggedest I have ever seen. Mr. Furnell had his raft lashed to ours and sold his lumber to them too.
We went to St. Paul on the Otter. Mr. Furnell went with us. When mother saw "Pig's Eye" as St. Paul was then called, she did not like it at all. She thought it was so much more lonesome than the pineries. She begged to go back, but father loved a new country. On landing, we climbed up a steep path. We found only six houses there. One was Jackson's. He kept a store in part of it. In the kitchen he had three barrels of liquor with spigots in them. The Jackson's were very kind and allowed us to live in their warehouse which was about half way down the bluff. We only slept there nights for we were afraid to cook in a place with powder stored in it, the way that had, so we cooked outside.
My sister Caroline had light hair, very, very blue eyes and a lovely complexion. The Indians were crazy about her. It was her fairness they loved. She was engaged to Mr. Furnell and wore his ring. The Indian braves used to ask her for this and for a lock of her hair to braid in with theirs but of course, she would never let them have it. She was afraid of them. The interpreter told her to be careful and never let them get a lock of her hair for if they did and braided it in with theirs, they would think she belonged to them. One day when she was alone in the warehouse, an Indian came in his canoe and sat around watching her. When he saw she was alone, he grabbed her and tried to cut off some of her hair with his big knife. She eluded him by motioning to cut it off herself, but instead, ran shrieking to father at Jackson's. He came with a big cudgel but the Indian had gone in his canoe.
In the election of '43 in St. Paul, every man there got drunk even if they had never drunk before and many of them had not. Early in the evening, Mr. August Larpenteur came into Mrs. Jackson's kitchen to get a drink of liquor. He was a very young man. She said, "August, where's the other men?" just as he was turning the spigot in the barrel. He tried to look up and tell her, but lost his balance and fell over backward while the liquor ran over the floor. Then he laughed and laughed and told her where they were.
We built a cabin a few miles out of town. Our nearest neighbors were the DeNoyers who kept a halfway house in a three roomed log cabin. Their bar was in the kitchen. Besides this, there was a scantily furnished sitting room and bed room. Mrs. DeNoyer was a warm hearted Irish woman when she had not been drinking, but her warm heart never had much chance to show. They bought their liquors at Jackson's.
Our house was made from logs hewed flat with a broadax. My father was a wonder at hewing. The ax was eight inches wide and had a crooked hickory handle. Some men marked where they were to hew but father had such a good eye that he could hew straight without a mark. The cracks were filled with blue clay. For windows, we had "chinkins" of wood. Our bark roof was made by laying one piece of bark over another, kind of like shingles. Our floor was of puncheons. This was much better than the bark floors, many people had.
I used to take much pleasure in watching and hearing the Red River carts come squawking along. They were piled high with furs. The French half breed drivers would slouch along by them. It seemed as if the small rough coated oxen just wandered along the trail. Sometimes a cow would be used. I once saw one of these cows with a buffalo calf. It seemed to be hers. Was this the first Cataloo?
When I was nine years old my father sent me to the spring for a pail of water. I was returning with it, hurrying along as father had just called to me to come quick, when I was surrounded by a