Read Ebook: Histoire de Marie Stuart by Dargaud Jean Marie

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Some dried beef on a plate on the end of the table was also delicious. Mr. Sibley again challenged me to tell what this was;--My reply being "dried beef." "No," said Mr. Sibley, "This too, is something you have never tasted before--it is boned dried beaver's tail. Over five thousand of them, as well as the skins have been brought in here during the year." There was also O'Donnell crackers and tea, but no bread. The tea, I was told, had been brought hundreds of miles up the river.

I bade my host farewell, thanking him for his entertainment and thinking I had never met a more courteous gentleman. Mr. Sibley, too, had told me that the St. Louis house was the best place I could stay, so I returned there.

For my journey down the river, I had brought with me a tarpaulin and a few of my worldly goods. I hired a man with an ox-cart to take these to the boat before dawn the day it was to leave, preparatory to my early start at sunup. The boat was about sixty feet long and propelled only by hand power, furnished by French half breeds who pushed it with long poles from the front, running rapidly and then taking a fresh start to push it again. These boats could make about twenty miles a day. They almost reached Shakopee the first day. At ten o'clock the boat tied up and breakfast was served. This was a very hot, thick soup made of peas and pork which had been cooked all night over hot coals in a hole in the ground, covered snugly over with earth. It had been wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin and buffalo robe and when served was piping hot, as it came from this first fireless cooker. Hardtack was served with this soup and made a most satisfactory meal. The other meal consisted of bacon and hardtack and at the end of the eighth day, had become quite monotonous. Whenever these meals were prepared, the boat was tied to the bank.

The mosquitoes, even in the daytime were so terrible that it was almost impossible to live. I looked forward to the time when we would tie up for the night, with great apprehension on this account. However, the clerk of the boat came to me and asked me if I had a mosquito net with me and when I said, "No" invited me to sleep under his as he said it would be unbearable without one. Just before they tied up for the night the clerk came to me saying that he was sorry, but he had forgotten that he had a wife in this village. I spent the night in misery under my tarpaulin, almost eaten alive by the mosquitoes. The half breeds did not seem to mind them at all. I again looked forward to a night under the mosquito bar and was again told the same as the night before. During the eight days which this journey consumed, I was only able once to sleep a night under the friendly protection of this mosquito bar, as it was always required for a wife.

When the boat tied up at Traverse des Sioux, Mr. Williamson met me. The trader sent a man to invite the three white men to dine with him. The invitation was accepted with great anticipation. The trader's house was a log cabin. The furniture consisted of roughly hewn benches and a table. An Indian woman brought in first a wooden bowl full of maple sugar which she placed on one end of the table with bowls and wooden spoons at the three places. We were all eyes when we saw these preparations. Last, she brought in a large bowl of something which I could see was snow-white and put that in the center of the table. All were then told to draw up to the table and help themselves. The bright anticipations vanished when the meal was seen to consist solely of clabbered milk with black looking maple sugar.

My sister, Mrs. Huggins, wife of the farmer at Lac qui Parle, was overjoyed to see me. Think what it must have meant to a woman way off in the wilderness in that early day to see anyone from civilization, let alone her brother. I had not seen her in several years. They had a nice little garden and quite a patch of wheat, which I was told was fine for the climate. The seed came from the craw of a wild swan that they had shot. It was supposed to have come from the Pembina country for those people had wheat long before the missionaries came. It was always called "Red River Wheat."

Pemmican, which I first tasted on this journey was made by boiling the flesh of any edible animal, usually that of buffalo or deer, pounding it fine and packing it tight into a sack made of the skin of a buffalo calf, then melting the fat and filling all interstices. When sewed up, it was absolutely air tight and would keep indefinitely. It was the most nourishing food that has ever been prepared. For many years it was the chief diet of all hunters, trappers, explorers and frontiersmen.

Pemmican was also made by drying the meat and pulverizing it. The bones were then cracked and the marrow melted and poured into this. No white man could ever make pemmican right. It took a half breed to do it.

The Red River people had cattle very early. The stock at the mission at Lac qui Parle came from there.

I returned to Illinois in the summer of '43 and threshed. In the Fall I returned and built a house for Gideon Pond. It was a wooden house where their brick house now stands.

In 1844, I was building a mission building at Traverse. An Indian came in one day and told me there was a very sick man about twenty miles away at his camp. I went back with him and we brought the white man to the mission. After he was better, he told me that he was one of six drovers who had been bringing a herd of three hundred cattle from Missouri to Fort Snelling. They had lost their compass and then the trail and wandered along until they found a road near what is now Sauk Center. There they met a band of Sioux. The Indians killed a cow and when the drovers remonstrated, they killed one of them and stampeded the cattle. The drovers all ran for their lives. Two of them managed to elude the Indians, and took the road leading east. Our man was one, the other was drowned while crossing the river on a log raft, the rest were never found. Many of the cattle ran wild on the prairies. The Indians used often to kill them and sell the meat to the whites. One of the claims at Traverse de Sioux was for these cattle from the owners of the herd.

Mrs. Missouri Rose Pratt--1843.

In 1842 my father was going to the Wisconsin pineries to work, so mother and we children went along to keep house for him. We came from Dubuque to Lake Pepin. Mr. Furnell, from the camp, had heard there were white people coming so he came with an ox team down the tote road to meet us and our baggage, and take us to camp. We found a large log house which we thought 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 band of Sioux warriors on their way to Shakopee to a scalp dance. They demanded the water but I would not let them have it and kept snatching it away. It tickled them very much to see that I was not afraid. They called to the chief, Little Crow, and he too ordered me to give it to them, but I said, "No, my father wants this, you can't have it." At this the chief laughed and said, "Tonka Squaw" meaning brave woman and they left. They had on everything fancy that an Indian could--paint and warbonnets and feathers. They always wore every fancy thing they had to a dance, but in actual war, they were unpainted and almost naked.

The first soldiers I saw in 1843 were from Fort Snelling. They had blue uniforms with lots of brass buttons and a large blue cap with a leather bridle that they used to wear over the top. Their caps were wide on top and high. The soldiers used to come to DeNoyer's to dinner so as to have a change. Mrs. DeNoyer was a good cook if she would stay sober long enough.

We had splint bottom chairs made out of hickory and brooms made by splitting it very fine too. These were all the brooms we had in '43. Our hickory brooms were round but Mr. Furnell made a flat one for my sister.

Once when father was roofing our house, a storm was coming and he was very anxious to get the shakes on before it came. We had had a bark roof that was awful leaky. Some Indians came along on the other side of the river and made motions that he should come and get them with his boat, "The Red Rover." He sometimes ferried the soldiers over. As he did not answer or get off the house, they fired several shots at him. The bullets spattered all around him. He got down from the house and shot at them several times. After that, my mother was always afraid that they would come and shoot us when father was not home.

I have seen Indians run from Jackson's at sight of a soldier. They were afraid of them always.

My father brought some beautiful pieces of red morocco to Minnesota and the last piece of shoemaking he did, was to make that into little shoes for me. They had low heels such as the children have today.

My sister was married the first day of January in '44. We lived on the Main Road between St. Paul and St. Anthony. It just poured all day, so that none of the guests could come to the wedding. Mr. Jackson did get there on horseback to marry them, but Mrs. Jackson had to stay at home. The bride, who was a beautiful girl, wore a delaine dress of light and dark blue with a large white lace fichu. Her shoes were of blue cloth to match and had six buttons. She wore white kid gloves and white stockings. Her bonnet was flat with roses at the sides and a cape of blue lute-string. The strings were the same. Wasn't she stylish for a girl who was married New Years day in 1844?

The wedding dinner was fish, cranberry sauce and bread and butter.

One day a lot of Sioux Indians who were on their way to fight the Chippewas borrowed my sister's washtub to mix the paint in for painting them up. They got their colored clay from the Bad Lands. They were going to have a dance.

Hole-in-the-Day used to stay all night with us. He always seemed to be a friend of the whites. When the Indians first came to the house, they used to smoke the peace pipe with us, but later, they never did.

Bears and wolves were very plentiful. We had an outdoor summer kitchen where we kept a barrel of pork. One night a bear got in there and made such an awful noise that we thought the Indians were on a rampage. We often saw timber wolves about the house. They would com

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