Old Rail Fence Corners. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ them squaws and the pork was together, but not where we were. We just charged it to profit and loss.

      Among them Indians was Ed, the greatest thief of all. He had been for years at a school in Chicago and had been their finest scholar. The Indians were all making dugout canoes and found it hard with their tools. I had a fine adz and Ed stole it. I could not make him bring it back. I used to feed the chief well and one day I told him Ed had stolen my adz. He said, "I make him bring it back." Sure enough, the next day at dusk Ed sneaked up and thinking no one was looking, threw it in a pile of snow about two feet deep. We saw him do it, so got it at once. We never knew how the chief made him do it.

      Once when I was building a mill up at Rum River we had to go to Princeton to get some things, so I started. I had to pass a camp of those dirty Winnebagoes. They had trees across for frames and probably two hundred deer frozen and hanging there. I was sneaking by, but the old chief saw me and insisted on my coming in to eat. I declined hard, saying I had had my dinner, but I knew all the time they knew better. I had on a buffalo overcoat and a leather shortcoat inside. In the tepee, they had a great kettle of dog soup, as it was a feast. Each one had a horn spoon and all ate out of the kettle. They gave me a spoon and I started in to eat. I did not touch it but poured it inside my inside coat for a couple of times. When I left the chief went and picked out one of the thinnest, poorest pieces of venison there was and insisted on my taking it. I was disgusted but did not dare refuse. A short distance away, I threw it in the snow which was about two feet deep off the trail. Shortly afterward I met the chief's son and was frightened, for I thought he would notice the hole and find what I had done. I watched him, but he was too drunk to notice and as it soon began to snow, I was safe. I guess the dogs got it.

      Mrs. James McMullen—1849.

      Mrs. McMullen says: When I first came to St. Anthony in 1849, there were no sandburrs. They did not come until after a flock of sheep had been driven through the town. We always thought they brought them. The sand was deep and yielding. You would step into it and it would give and give. It would seem as if you never could reach bottom. It would tire you all out to walk a short distance. We soon had boards laid down for walks. Lumber was hard to get, for the mills sawed little and much was needed. The sidewalk would disappear in the night. No one who was building a board house was safe from suspicion. They always thought he had the sidewalk in his house.

      When we first built our house I wanted a garden. My brother said, "You might as well plant seeds on the seashore," but we did plant them and I never had seen such green stuff. I measured one pumpkin vine and it was thirty feet long.

      Whenever the Red River carts came by, I used to tie the dog to the doorlatch. I did not want any calls from such rough looking men as they were. Those carts would go squawking by all day. Later they used to camp where the Winslow house was built. There would be large numbers there, a regular village. Once when I was driving with Mr. McMullen, one of them stopped by us and I said, "Oh, see that ox is a cow!"

      In '49 or '50 the old black schoolhouse was the site of an election. I lived near enough to hear them yell, "To Hell mit Henry Siblee—Hurrah for Louis Robert." If those inside did not like the way the vote was to be cast, they would seize the voter and out the back window he would come feet first, striking on the soft sand. This would continue until the voter ceased to return or those inside got too drunk or tired to throw him out. The town was always full of rough lumberjacks at these early elections and for the day they run the town.

      I used always to make twenty-one pies a week. One for every meal. I had two boarders who were friends of ours. Not that I wanted boarders, but these men had to stay somewhere and there was no somewhere for them to stay. Each took her friends to help them out. I was not very strong and cooking was hard on me. There was no one to hire to work. After a very hot day's work, I was sick and did not come down to breakfast. One of the boarders was not working. I came down late and got my breakfast. I set half of a berry pie on the table and went to get the rest of the things. When I came back, it was in the cupboard. The boarder sat reading. I thought I had forgotten and had not put it on, so set it on again and went for the tea. When I came back again, the pie was again in the cupboard and the boarder still studying the almanac. I said, "What are you doing to that pie?" He said, "Keeping it from being et! After this you make seven pies instead of twenty-one and other things the same and you won't be all wore out, we'll only have them for dinner," and so it was. I suppose there were more pies on the breakfast tables of that little village of St. Anthony than there would be now at that meal in the great city of Minneapolis, for it was then a New England village.

      Dr. Lysander P. Foster—1849.

      I came to Minneapolis on the Ben Franklin. She was a wood burner and every time that her captain would see a pile of wood that some new settler had cut, he would run ashore, tie up and buy it. A passenger was considered very haughty if he did not take hold and help.

      My father built his house partly of lumber hauled from Stillwater, but finished with lumber from here, as the first mill at the foot of First Avenue Southeast was then completed. It had one saw only and so anxious were the settlers for the lumber, that each board was grabbed and walked off with as soon as it came from the saw.

      The first school I went to as a boy of fourteen, was on Marshall Street Northeast, between Fourth and Sixth Avenues. It was taught by Miss Backus. There were two white boys and seven half breed Bottineaus. It was taught much like kindergarten of today—object lessons, as the seven half breeds spoke only French and Miss Backus only English. McGuffy's Reader was the only text book.

      The Indians were much like white people. The Sioux boys at their camp at the mouth of Bassett's Creek were always my playfellows. I spent many happy days hunting, fishing and playing games with them. They were always fair in their play. The games they enjoyed most were "Shinny" and a game played on the ice in the winter. A stick with a long handle and heavy smooth curved end was thrown with all the strength possible. Some could throw it over a block. The one throwing it farthest beat. I suppose what I call "shinny" was really La Crosse.

      What is now Elwell's Addition was a swamp. I have run a twelve foot pole down in many parts of it without touching bottom.

      Mr. Secomb, the father of Methodism in Minneapolis, was going to St. Paul to preach. He took a dugout canoe from the old board landing. His friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, now that he practiced it.

      The peculiarity of the swamp land in St. Paul was that it was all on a ledge and was only about two feet deep. You could touch rock bottom anywhere there, but here a swamp was a swamp and could be any depth.

      In 1848 half breeds had gardens and raised famous vegetables up in what is now Northeast Minneapolis.

      I once took my sister over on the logs to pick strawberries on the end of what is now Eastman Island. They were large, very plentiful and sweet. Almost every tree that grew anywhere in the new territory grew there. Black walnut grew there and on Nicollet Island.

      Mrs. Silas Farnham—1849.

      Mrs. Silas Farnham says: I came to St. Anthony in 1849. My husband had a little storehouse for supplies for the woods, across from our home on the corner of Third Avenue and Second Street, Southeast. A school house was much needed so they cleared this out and Miss Backus taught the first school there. It was also used for Methodist preachin'. Our first aid society was held there in '49.

      I well remember the first Fourth of July celebration in 1849. The women found there was no flag so knew one must be made. СКАЧАТЬ